Hiring Chief Executives

What do chief executives do?

• Direct or coordinate an organization's financial or budget activities to fund operations, maximize investments, or increase efficiency.
• Confer with board members, organization officials, or staff members to discuss issues, coordinate activities, or resolve problems.
• Prepare budgets for approval, including those for funding or implementation of programs.
• Direct, plan, or implement policies, objectives, or activities of organizations or businesses to ensure continuing operations, to maximize returns on investments, or to increase productivity.
• Prepare or present reports concerning activities, expenses, budgets, government statutes or rulings, or other items affecting businesses or program services.
• Implement corrective action plans to solve organizational or departmental problems.

Core tasks, O*NET OnLine, 11-1011.00.

What does it take to become one?

Most of these occupations require graduate school. For example, they may require a master's degree, and some require a Ph.D., M.D., or J.D. (law degree).

Extensive skill, knowledge, and experience are needed for these occupations. Many require more than five years of experience. For example, surgeons must complete four years of college and an additional five to seven years of specialized medical training to be able to do their job.

Employees may need some on-the-job training, but most of these occupations assume that the person will already have the required skills, knowledge, work-related experience, and/or training.

O*NET Job Zone 5, SVP (8.0 and above). O*NET OnLine.

Employers commonly list experience with Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Office software, Microsoft PowerPoint, Adobe Acrobat, Atlassian JIRA, Extensible markup language XML for this role.

What do chief executives get paid?

BLS OEWS, May 2025 publishes a wage for chief executives in 79 of the metro areas in this build. The median ranges from $123,500 to $381,330 a year depending on the metro, with a midpoint of $216,240. This is what employers pay, place of work, not a single national figure and not what any one person takes home.

BLS OEWS, BLS OEWS, May 2025, SOC 11-1011.

What does hiring one cost?

The same as any role: tier, not location or salary, sets the fee. Across all six tiers the published range is $6,240 to $54,340 per search. For scale, the highest published median for chief executives in this build is $381,330. A contingency firm hiring at that level would bill roughly $76,266 to $114,399 on the first year salary alone, 20 to 30%.

Frequently asked

How fast can a chief executives search fill?

23 to 35 days, 2 to 3x faster than a typical contingency search, per the recruiting provider's published figures.

What if the hire does not work out?

A 45-day replacement guarantee, at 50% off a repeat search for the same role.