Why more CEOs are sharing the top job

For nearly 16 years, Pippa Begg ran Board Intelligence as co-chief govt with Jennifer Sundberg.

Collectively they grew the enterprise, which offers evaluation and companies for firm boards, and as we speak it employs 200 employees and has massive massive title shoppers, together with Nationwide, Rolls-Royce and Reckitt.

“We’re fairly totally different individuals – very a lot yin and yang – however I believe selections are higher made with two brains somewhat than one because it stops hubris,” says Begg, who’s London-based.

Begg and Sundberg are a part of a development, that is seen extra firms experimenting with a co-CEO management construction.

In 2015, there have been 11 firms with co-CEOs within the Russell 3000 group of the most important public firms within the US, whereas in 2024, this had greater than doubled to 24, in response to an evaluation by public firm intelligence agency MyLogIQ.

A raft of main firms additionally made such appointments in 2024, similar to Oracle, Comcast, and Spotify. Netflix, in the meantime, has had co-CEOs since 2020.

Prime company executives are nicely rewarded – a report from final yr confirmed that chief executives on the UK’s largest companies are paid, on common, 122 times the salary of the typical full-time, UK employee.

Nonetheless, there are downsides to being in cost.

According to a survey by management advisory agency ICEO, 56% of high executives felt burnt out in 2024.

A co-CEO mannequin divides duty, accountability, and, in the end, the burden between two individuals.

Management coach Audrey Hametner has noticed that co-CEOs can take day out that sole CEOs may in any other case really feel they can not do. She recollects a CEO shopper who had not taken a vacation in 5 years, however was lastly in a position to have a household vacation as soon as he discovered a co-CEO accomplice.

Hametner says it additionally permits bosses to play to their strengths.

She offers the instance of a earlier shopper the place one co-CEO labored extra carefully with the advertising and product departments, and the opposite primarily with finance, authorities regulatory our bodies and authorized.

“You will have co-CEOs the place one is an outgoing and high-level thinker, who might discover it tougher to deal with all of the small duties, and the opposite CEO is extra detail-oriented and loves to talk to the info and the nuances,” she says.

Sharing the workload might also give the co-CEOs extra time with their household. That is one thing they is perhaps missing – 60% of CEOs report spending too little time with their household, according to a study by govt search agency Russell Reynolds.

Begg took three maternity leaves of round six months within the house of 5 years, returning to work every time in a four-day week capability.

Equally, Sundberg took two maternity leaves in that interval.

Begg notes that it is uncommon for a CEO on each counts.

Some feminine CEOs have been public about taking minimal maternity go away, with 71% of ladies in management positions taking lower than six months’ go away for concern of jeopardising their jobs, in response to information from That Works For Me.

The identical research reveals a 32% drop in ladies at managerial degree after having kids.

Begg credit her co-CEO partnership for not turning her into one other statistic.

“With out the co-CEO construction, the commerce off would have both been too nice for the enterprise, or too nice for the best way that we wished to have our kids and have maternity go away,” she displays.

“If we hadn’t had the co-CEO mannequin, we most likely would have felt that we wanted to discover a new CEO, and even promote the enterprise, that are issues that occur to so many female-run companies as a result of they do not see how it should work. Our expertise was that this will actually work.”

It has been the case for Dhruv Amin and Marcus Lowe, the co-founders and co-CEOs of Something, a startup centered on “vibe coding”, which permits anybody to create an app with out understanding tips on how to code.

Due to the arrange, Amin was in a position to take two paternity leaves of three weeks every in 2024 and 2025.

“Marcus has lined for me twice. We have each had instances after we’re gunning exhausting for the corporate, and instances we’re not. The construction offers us permission to be human with out all the things falling aside,” says Amin, who is predicated in San Francisco.

In Finland, Denise Johansson was in a position to take three weeks away from work when her father died all of the sudden in 2024. She has been co-CEO and co-founder of cost processing platform Enfuce with Monika Liikamaa since 2016.

“It was not solely an enormous emotional shock, it additionally got here with plenty of surprising duty as I inherited one other enterprise on the identical time,” says Johansson, who is predicated in Mariehamn, within the Åland Islands.

“Monika stepped in with out hesitation, took on extra of the day-to-day load, and created the house I wanted to cope with each grief and sensible points.”

With six kids between them, Johansson and Liikamaa are additionally in a position to take time with household whereas the opposite one holds the fort.

“If my children want me, I will likely be off with them – no query. We coordinate in order that key moments for our kids are protected, whereas the corporate nonetheless has a gradual hand on the wheel,” says Johansson.

But a co-CEO mannequin has but to change into a mainstream, long-term answer. Salesforce, SAP and Marks and Spencer all appointed co-CEOs within the early 2020s, lasting not more than two years.

Tierney Remick is a Chicago-based vice chairman and co-leader of the worldwide board and CEO apply at enterprise consultancy Korn Ferry.

She’s noticed that co-CEOs are inclined to work finest at impartial firms with out complicated buildings, and with two those that have already labored collectively.

In any other case, there may be energy struggles, misalignment in imaginative and prescient, and confusion amongst the broader firm.

“Leaders making an attempt to determine their partnership, in addition to drive the enterprise and evolve the technique – and doing it in a approach that does not create confusion within the organisation – is normally very tough if they do not know one another,” says Remick.

Co-CEO pairings can be used as a sort of succession planning to see if one will in the end change into the only, core CEO, she provides.

“There is a great quantity of succession planning taking place in the meanwhile. And there’s the truth that the pipeline of ‘ready-now’ CEOs has decreased over the past a number of years,” she says.

“So we’re seeing boards discover other ways to develop the roles and duties of excessive potential leaders, to see how they speed up and develop in a market that’s creating plenty of change and ambiguity day-after-day.”

For Begg, her co-CEO days got here to an finish in 2024 when Board Intelligence acquired personal fairness backers, which grew to become a pure level for Sundberg to face down. Sundberg stays on the corporate’s advisory board.

Now Begg is the only CEO, she acknowledges she has much less time to spend with household, so her husband left his job to be extra current at dwelling.

After their youngest baby began college final September, he arrange a consultancy that he works on throughout college hours.

“He carries the load of dwelling and household life. It nonetheless most likely raises an eyebrow when he is referred to as into a gathering and he says it must be between 10am and 3pm. They’re going to be shocked {that a} man has mentioned that,” says Begg.