Independent leadership is becoming more common as companies separate the CEO and board chair roles. In 2024, 5% of newly appointed S&P 1500 CEOs also took on the role of board chair, a slight increase from previous years. Meanwhile, 59% of S&P 500 companies had already split the CEO and board chair positions by 2023. This number continues to grow each year.
One recent example of this transition that sent shockwaves worldwide was Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, being ousted as chairman to settle a lawsuit. Another example is Boeing’s CEO’s departure as chairperson. However, why is CEO duality becoming increasingly rarer, and should you separate these positions?
We shed light on the risks of CEO duality and the benefits of splitting the two positions for the board of directors. Keep reading to discover how board portal software simplifies corporate governance.
CEO vs. chairman: the definition
Harvard Business Review says there is a continuous chairman vs CEO vs president debate, as many organizations use these titles in varying combinations. While the CEO focuses on day-to-day operations, the president may take on specific leadership responsibilities, often under the guidance of the board chairman.
Several leading public companies, like Boeing and Facebook, combine CEO and chairperson roles.
According to Indeed, many small businesses and nonprofit organizations also have CEO-chairman duality. Many chairpersons have similar responsibilities to CEO roles due to a small company’s size.
However, Investopedia insists on separating the CEO and the chairperson because these are very different positions.
According to Britannica, it is “the senior manager or leader of a business or other organization, such as a nonprofit or nongovernmental organization (NGO)”. It is the highest-ranking executive.
In contrast, a chairperson (chairwoman, chairman, or chair) is the “senior officer of a committee, board, or organization responsible for presiding over its annual general meeting”.
Let us unveil more details about the differences between these two roles.
What is the difference between chairman and CEO?
Let’s compare the key differences between the CEO and chairperson roles in the table below.
| Chairman’s Primary Responsibility | CEO’s Primary Responsibility |
| The board of directors of the company (organization). | The company’s (organization’s) operations. |
| Core Chairman Functions | Core CEO Functions |
| – Governs the company’s board of directors. – Manages the board composition and committees. – Plans meeting agendas and runs board meetings. – Formulates (with the CEO) yearly plans for the board of directors. – Manages conflicts of interest within the board or senior executives. – Ensures the board of directors works efficiently and achieves its goals. – Maintains healthy relations with the company’s board and executive teams. – Supervises the CEO’s performance, hires, and replaces the CEO. – Aligns major corporate decisions with the company’s strategic direction. | – Creates the organization’s growth strategy according to the company’s vision. – Hires leadership teams to execute growth strategies. – The CEO leads daily operations and defines strategic direction. – Evaluates the company’s performance and achieves its strategic objectives. – Represents the company to customers, media, and investors. – Establishes and maintains the company’s operational structure. – Manages business operations.Makes strategic decisions. – Reports to the board of directors.Serves as the bridge between the board of directors and the company’s management teams. – Oversees the company’s daily operations. |
| Chairperson’s Average Age and Experience | CEO’s Average Age and Experience |
| – Sixty-one years, according to Spencer Stuart. – Ten or more years of experience in a senior leadership position to become the board chair, according to ZipRecruiter. | – Fifty-eight years, according to Spencer Stuart. – Ten years of experience in a leadership position is required to become the CEO, according to Indeed. |
| Who Becomes the Chairperson? | Who Becomes the CEO? |
| Harvard Business Review says that 85% of board chairs are former CEOs, based on a survey of S&P 500 companies. | Spencer Stuart has found that CEOs typically ascend from the senior-level executives, including the chief operating officer COO), CFO chief financial officer (CFO), and CEOs of company divisions. A chief technology officer (CTO) can also become the CEO. |
| How Much Does the Chairman Work? | How Much Does the CEO Work? |
| The average chairman dedicates 5.5 hours to the company weekly (up to 290 hours annually). | The average CEO works 62.5 hours weekly, including workdays and vacation days (up to 3,200 hours annually). |
| Who Gets Paid More? | |
| A chairman’s average annual salary is $196,014, according to Salary.com. | A CEO’s average annual salary is $818,800, according to Salary.com. |
The cooperative role of the chairman and CEO
Many successful companies, including advisory & consulting firms like Deloitte, have separate CEO and board chair positions. These are two complementary roles, and the board chair becomes the extension of the CEO’s business strategy, providing guidance and supervision.
According to Spencer Stuart, the CEO and board chair should have balanced cooperation, not too close or too combative. It helps them manage the conflict of interest and preserve the freedom of action.
Tools like board portals significantly benefit the corporate boards, providing sophisticated and advanced capabilities. These digital platforms simplify communication between the CEO and chair, helping them stay organized and aligned. Board portals allow both leaders to schedule meetings easily, share documents, and track progress toward their strategic goals.
Additionally, board portals help with corporate governance compliance by securely storing meeting minutes, votes, and other important documents in centralized repositories with advanced security measures. This ensures that everything is recorded accurately and can be accessed when needed from any authorized device.
The consequences of employing the same person as chairman and CEO
Unfavorable consequences of CEO duality have made CEO-chairman splitting a governance trend. Let us describe several examples that answer why CEO duality is not a sustainable approach.
Conflict of interest
Researchers have concluded that the executive chairman vs. CEO battle lies between organizational unity and independent business assessment. However, the potential conflict of interest outweighs the good intentions of combining these roles.
Sometimes it leads to devastating consequences, including financial loss and, most importantly, the loss of lives. This once happened to Boeing.
In October 2018 and March 2019, two crashes of Boeing’s best-selling airplanes took the lives of 346 passengers.
Investigators and reporters attributed the tragedy to competitive pressure, the lack of oversight, and the flawed flight control systems of Boeing’s 737 MAX aircraft.
The New York Times also found that Boeing successfully lobbied for the law that undermined airplane design oversight before the accidents. The Los Angeles Times attributed these accidents to the board’s “dereliction of duty.” The aftermath was the following:
- Boeing fired Dennis Muilenburg, its CEO, chairman, and board president.
- Boeing lost $12 billion in 2020 when the pandemic worsened its reputation.
- Boeing paid victims’ families $500 million in compensation and over $2.5 billion in charges to the airlines that used its aircraft during the accidents.
Boeing could have avoided passenger deaths if its senior managers had had adequate supervision from an independent board chair.
The power of chief executive officer
According to IE University, combining CEO and board chair roles leads to the concentration of substantial power in one individual.
Consequently, the lack of management supervision may lead to controversial decisions and harm both business operations and shareholder profits.
One such example is Elon Musk’s Tesla stock manipulation back in 2018. At that time, Elon was the CEO, co-founder, and chairman of Tesla and had unlimited power over the company.
On August 7, 2018, Elon tweeted that he secured the deal to take Tesla private for $420 per share (18 times higher than the company’s stock price of August 1, 2018).
Elon pursued shareholder interests and claimed he received their confirmation. However, the deal was never meant to be realized, and there was no sufficient financing. This led to several consequences:
- The stock price surged 10% after the tweet and dropped 20% once Musk suddenly canceled the planned privatization deal.
- Elon Musk faced an investor lawsuit as traders lost millions of dollars.
- Elon Musk paid $40 million in penalties and resigned from the chairman position at Tesla.
Tesla and its investors could have avoided these issues if Elon had not been the only person making significant decisions.
Chairman of the board vs. CEO: benefits of splitting the roles
The primary benefits of separating the board chair and CEO positions are reduced risk of conflict of interest and excessive concentration of power. Eliminating these risks allows companies to avoid many reputational, financial, and regulatory issues.
Hiring an independent board chair provides several more benefits to the board of directors:
- Balanced oversight. The independent company’s chairman acts in good faith and prevents management errors and flawed decisions of the senior management team.
- Enhanced board independence. The board chair keeps the board of directors from the CEO’s potential abuse. This additional barrier for conflict of interest keeps the board independent and prevents corruption.
Board portals are designed with detailed, granular permissions to prevent unauthorized access to information. This ensures that board records stay protected and that the CEO cannot interfere with the board’s decisions. - Clear division of responsibilities. A non-executive chairman dedicates 100% of their effort to the board of directors and strategic oversight. In contrast, the dual CEO’s overwhelming workload limits their board governance capabilities.
Board portals are proven facilitators serving as centralized hubs for meeting scheduling, document sharing, and decision tracking. This way, the CEO and board chair can both focus on their distinct roles. - Improved compliance. Several laws require boards to have only external board members (including board chairs). Splitting the CEO-chair roles helps nonprofits and businesses improve ESG compliance. Check more ESG compliance requirements regarding the governance structure of the board.
Board portals also assist in compliance by automating tracking for regulations, minimizing risks related to oversight, and ensuring that all necessary records are securely stored and easily accessible.
A series of checks and balances
First and foremost, one should look at this from a human perspective. Indeed, CEOs should be hired based on their upstanding moral fiber and keen business sense. And one could assume they’re only going to be making decisions and public statements that serve the best interests of an organization.
But, as someone like Elon Musk proves, human error, ego, hubris, and other matters come into play. And companies with same CEO and chairman positions often give single individuals too much power.
Being granted the position of chairman – on top of CEO – is enough authority and governance for anybody to lose perspective. Or, there are more extreme situations like with the former Boeing’s dual CEO-chairman, Dennis Muilenburg.
Also, if the CEO is the chairman, it’s a conflict of interest when it comes to the hiring and firing of that position.
If a CEO-chairman is fending for their job, they have more power to obfuscate and influence the proceedings. Contrarily, an independent chairman provides a fresher, more balanced point of view.
Therefore, “board chairman vs. CEO” shouldn’t be a debate. They should be different roles. By removing that level of governance from a CEO, the chairman acts as a mitigating force to these kinds of activities.
Independent of the chief executive officer, the chairman protects the organization from ill-disciplined behavior (Musk) or unprofessional, dangerous actions (Muilenburg).
What are the pitfalls of separating the chairman and CEO roles?
While separated CEO and board chair roles eliminate crucial risks, it may create the following pitfalls:
- Potential chairman versus CEO rivalry. Potential conflicts disconnect the board from the company and challenge governance flows. It may also happen when the board chair is a former CEO.
- Increased leadership costs. Splitting CEO and board chair positions leads to ~$200,000 in additional yearly spending. However, this is not the case with nonprofits, where board directors are usually unpaid.
- Board succession challenges. Seeking two leadership candidates instead of one may challenge board turnover timelines. However, many boards successfully tackle these challenges with wise succession planning practices.
Check the six best practices for nonprofit boards, including board structure and succession planning.
Key takeaways
- The chairman and chief executive officer are different roles within the company or organization.
- Chairman’s responsibilities revolve around the board of directors and strategic oversight of the company, while the CEO supervises day-to-day company operations.
- Most companies divide roles of CEO and chairman more than before the series of scandals involving CEO-chair duality.
- Combining CEO and chairperson roles leads to a conflict of interest, excessive concentration of power, and various business risks.
- Splitting the chairperson and the CEO roles helps prevent financial, reputational, operational, and legal risks.
