How Did The World's Top 100 CEOs Get To The Top?

What Makes a Top CEO?

The Education & Career Steps of The World’s Best CEOs

•  42% of the world’s top 100 CEOs are between the age of 56 and 60.
•  98% of the most influential 100 CEOs have a degree, with 36% of them earning a degree in a business-related subject
• Only 4 of the world’s biggest companies have a female CEO, 96 are male
• 28% of CEOs have a career background in operations, 25% in finance

What type of person is more likely to make it to the top of a multinational business? New research from Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment suggests that people who people who have a career background in operations or finance are the most likely leaders.

A study into the most influential 100 CEOs in the world has investigated whether there is any trend between your first career steps and how far you progress. The research suggests that it is near impossible to make it to the top of one of the largest businesses without a degree, 98% of the top 100 CEOs are graduates. Of the 98 graduates, the most popular degree type was business (36%) followed by engineering, accounting for 23% of the graduate CEOs.

The breakdown of the top 5 degree types for CEO graduates can be seen below:

Degree Type	Count of CEOs
Business	33
Engineering	21
Economics	10
Accounting & Finance	9
Computer Science	4

The research also looks into the age and gender of the largest companies’ CEOs. 96% of these CEOs are male, with only 4 of the largest businesses in the World having a female CEO.

The average ‘Top CEO’ age is 59, with by far the most prominent age group being between 56-60, accounting for 42% of the CEOs reviewed. The top 5 age groups can be seen below, out of 96 CEOs with publicly available information of their age:

Age Range	Count of CEOs
56-60	40
61-65	23
51-55	15
66-70	8
41-45	3

Finally, the study reviews the career backgrounds of the most powerful CEOs, grouping their career backgrounds into concise categories. 54% of the ‘Top CEOs’ have a career background in either finance or operations.

The top 5 career backgrounds can be seen below:

Professional Background	Proportion of CEOs
Operations	28%
Finance	26%
R & D	14%
Data Analysis	11%
Sales	8%

For the full results of the study, please visit: https://www.aaronwallis.co.uk/news/top-ceos-in-the-world.aspx

Rob Scott, Managing Director at Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment said:
“In 2018 we are seeing that it is near impossible to lead a big business without being a graduate and that earning an MBA can be a real advantage to progressing your career. Starting out in an operations or finance related field can give you the mindset and strategic thinking which is necessary to make it to the top.

It’s also unsurprising how many CEOs in our study have worked in a sales role at some point in their career, teaching you the communication skills to manage staff and negotiate large business deals.”

ENDS

About the research

The study was conducted by Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment, researching the CEOs of the world’s largest businesses based upon Forbes data.

Research on the CEOs came from a range of sources, mixing Wikipedia data with reports from publications and outlets to collate the first career moves and education of the world’s most powerful CEOs.

Aaron Wallis Conducts Study Into Fastest Growing Brands 2017

The Fastest Growing Brands of 2017

(Out of the 100 most valuable brands in the World)

·       The women’s fashion retailer PrettyLittleThing topped our study, doubling their ‘search interest’ between 2016 and 2017. Gucci and Louis Vitton also appeared in the top 5 climbing brands out of the 100 we reviewed.

·       A number of Chinese brands scored very highly in our study including Tencent, Maotai, Baidu and Hauwei, who all grew their search interest by over 10% year-on-year.

·       There is a trend of eCommerce brands growing in search interest, with big names like Amazon and Zara also appearing in our top 20 brands by search interest increases.

Which brands have grown the most in presence in 2017? New research from Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment suggests that PrettyLittleThing, Tencent (WeChat) and Gucci have grown the most in brand interest this year.

The study uses weekly indexes from Google Trends to measure ‘search interest’ - where search-engine data is aggregated around a topic, or in this case a business, to reflect changes in searches and discussion. Weekly data from January 2016 to November 2017 was collected and averaged – comparing the average search interest score of 2017 with the same time period of 2016.

We have segmented our results into B2C and B2B brands as follows:

10 Fastest Climbing Global Consumer Brands

Brand	Relative Search Interest - 2016	Relative Search Interest - 2017	Year-On-Year Difference
PrettyLittleThing	25.0%	58.6%	33.6%
Gucci	34.6%	61.7%	27.2%
Louis Vuitton	64.1%	82.8%	18.8%
Maotai	43.9%	60.6%	16.6%
Netflix	71.8%	86.0%	14.2%
China Mobile	72.1%	84.7%	12.5%
Xfinity	63.4%	74.9%	11.5%
Ping-An Insurance	59.6%	70.9%	11.3%
KFC	77.6%	88.9%	11.3%
Huawei	67.7%	78.5%	10.8%

10 Fastest Growing B2B Brands

Brand	Relative Search Interest - 2016	Relative Search Interest - 2017	Year-On-Year Difference
Tencent	28.1%	61.4%	33.3%
Baidu	75.9%	89.7%	13.8%
SalesForce	74.8%	83.2%	8.3%
DHL Express	64.5%	70.7%	6.2%
Accenture	78.3%	84.4%	6.1%
FedEx	63.7%	69.1%	5.5%
Costco	63.7%	68.7%	5.0%
Rolls Royce	57.2%	62.1%	4.9%
United Parcel Service	58.2%	62.4%	4.2%
China Construction Bank	80.5%	84.0%	3.4%

For the full results of the study, please visit: https://www.aaronwallis.co.uk/fastest-growing-brands.aspx

ENDS

About the research

The study was conducted by Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment, collecting weekly search interest data from Google Trends. 100 of the most valuable brands in the World were reviewed using Global search volume data.

Average search interest data was compared from two time series:
01/01/2016 – 19/11/2016
01/01/2017 – 19/11/2017

Our Study Into The 100 Richest Billionaires

Billionaires’ First Steps:
The Richest People’s First Jobs & Education

·       75 of the World’s richest 100 people have earned a degree. Of these 75, 22 studied a degree in engineering.

·       53 of the World’s top 100 billionaires started working in a non-family owned business. 19% of these billionaires started working in a salesperson role and 17% started working as a stock trader. 

·       17% of the World’s top 100 billionaires started their careers by setting up their own business.

What type of person is more likely to become a billionaire? New research from Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment suggests that people who start their career in a salesperson role are more likely to hit it rich.

A study into the richest 100 people in the World has investigated whether there is any trend between your first career steps and how rich you become. The research suggests that engineering and business graduates are most likely to become billionaires, and if you want to become one of the world’s richest you should start your career in a sales or stock trader role. Furthermore, you are far more likely to make the top 100 list if you are a graduate – 75% of the top 100 have earned a degree.

The research into first career steps looks at the billionaires who started working in an organisation that was not their own, or family owned. These billionaires were then grouped into type of first job, which gave the following job roles as the top 5 results:

Job Role	Count of Job Category (Total = 53)
Salesperson	10
Stock Trader	9
Software Developer	5
Engineer	5
Analyst (Varied)	4

The study also looks at the top degree subject by type, which gave the following degree categories as the top 5 results:

Degree Type	Count of Degree Studied (Total = 75)
Engineering	22
Business	16
Finance & Economics	11
Law	6
Computer Science	4

For the full results of the study, please visit: https://www.aaronwallis.co.uk/what-makes-a-billionaire.aspx

Rob Scott, Managing Director at Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment said: “Today we are seeing that nearly all of the top people in business are graduates and that a degree can be a great first-step into preparing you for your career ahead. It’s also unsurprising how many of the top 100 billionaires started working as salespeople, which can give you the communication and negotiation skills which are vital to succeed.”

About the research

The study was conducted by Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment, researching the top 100 richest people in the world based on Forbes data.
Research on the billionaires came from a range of sources, mixing Wikipedia data with reports from publications and outlets to collate the first career moves and education of the world’s richest people.