2008 Data from Spencer Stuart on S&P 500 CEO (link broken so it was removed, it is so sad that companies still pay people to manage web sites that don’t even understand basic web usability principles such as web pages must live forever) shows once again more have undergraduate degrees in engineering than any other field, increasing to 22% of CEO’s this year.
| Field |
|
|
% of CEOs | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 |
|
2007 |
|
2006 |
|
2005 | |||
| Engineering | 22 | 21 | 23 | 20 | |||||
| Economics | 16 | 15 | 13 | 11 | |||||
| Business Administration | 13 | 13 | 12 | 15 | |||||
| Accounting | 9 | 8 | 8 | 7 | |||||
| Liberal Arts | 6 | 6 | 8 | 9 | |||||
| No degree or no data | 3 | 3 | |||||||
In 1990 Engineering majors accounted for 6% of the bachelor’s degrees in the USA (1970 5%, 1980 7%). Business accounted for 23% of the majors in 1990 (1970 14%, 1980 21%). Liberal arts 3% in 1980 (1970 1%, 1980 2%).
The report does not show the fields for the rest of the CEO’s. 39% of S&P CEOs have MBAs. 28% have other advanced degrees. The University of Wisconsin-Madison and Harvard tied for the most CEO’s with undergraduate degrees from their universities at 13. Princeton and the University of Texas had 9 and Stanford had 8.
While the CEO’s have engineering education backgrounds the work they have done is often in other functions. The top function that CEO’s that have worked in during their careers: Operations (42%), Finance (31%), Marketing (24%), Sales (17%), Engineering (11%).
Data for previous years is also from Spencer Stuart: S&P 500 CEOs are Engineering Graduates (2007 data) 2006 S&P 500 CEO Education Study – Top degree for S&P 500 CEOs? Engineering (2005 study)
Related: Another Survey Shows Engineering Degree Results in the Highest Pay – Science and Engineering Degrees lead to Career Success – The Future is Engineering
i think this is interesting and good news. engineers can do lots of things, they are built to be problem solvers. and if you can learn about all the things engineers need then it should be easy to expand into other things.
Engineering degrees provide a “can do” learning basis. Practically, CEOs with engineering qualifications are sought to provide not just a management trait, but also to be able to replace and properly guide subordinates. Management just for the sake of management is kind of obsolete. We not only have to know how to run a business, but also how it works and how to manage it.
This info doesn’t come to a surprise to me. I agree with Henry; most of the engineers I know have a very structured mind, are very pragmatic and have a good sense of reality.
Pingback: Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog » Engineering Majors Hold 8 of Top 10 Highest Paid Majors
Pingback: Career Prospect for Engineers Continues to Look Positive » Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog
Pingback: Engineers are the new Currency » Curious Cat Engineering Blog
Reason why more engineers make to the top positions is that they have two kinds of skills: first, they may have natural aptitude in management, second they learn practically throughout their degree program. The fact that business schools either online schools or regular schools don’t add much to the managerial skills more than the innate potential of a person means that from managerial point of view ENGINEERS and MBAs are more or less same. Since hiring engineers give an added advantage, companies more often go after the engineers. No wonder, online engineering schools are sprouting up at every nook corner.
Pingback: Engineers Again Shown to Lead More Companies Than Other Disciplines » Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog
Pingback: STEM Education Statistics to Share with Skeptics | DRPF Consults
Actually this is quite true.. It is similar here in developing countries such as in South East Asia..
Hi, would you be able to provide the data referred to as coming from Spencerstuart.org? Those data are not available via the link you’ve provided. Thanks!
Jim
Unfortunately spencerstuart deleted the content. It is so sad that companies still don’t understand extremely basic web usability practices – such as urls must live forever.