Why more CEOs are sharing the top job

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

Collectively they grew the enterprise, which offers evaluation and companies for firm boards, and at this time it employs 200 workers and has huge huge title purchasers, together with Nationwide, Rolls-Royce and Reckitt.

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

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

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

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

High company executives are effectively rewarded – a report from final 12 months confirmed that chief executives on the UK’s largest corporations are paid, on common, 122 times the salary of the typical full-time, UK employee.

Nevertheless, there are downsides to being in cost.

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

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

Management coach Audrey Hametner has noticed that co-CEOs can take outing 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 capable of have a household vacation as soon as he discovered a co-CEO associate.

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 intently with the advertising and marketing and product departments, and the opposite primarily with finance, authorities regulatory our bodies and authorized.

“You could have co-CEOs the place one is an outgoing and high-level thinker, who could discover it more difficult to give attention to 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 may give the co-CEOs extra time with their household. That is one thing they is likely to be missing – 60% of CEOs report spending too little time with their household, according to a study by government search agency Russell Reynolds.

Begg took three maternity leaves of round six months within the area 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 depart, with 71% of ladies in management positions taking lower than six months’ depart for worry of jeopardising their jobs, in accordance with knowledge from That Works For Me.

The identical examine reveals a 32% drop in girls at managerial stage after having youngsters.

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 youngsters and have maternity depart,” 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 may actually work.”

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

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

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

In Finland, Denise Johansson was capable of take three weeks away from work when her father died abruptly in 2024. She has been co-CEO and co-founder of fee processing platform Enfuce with Monika Liikamaa since 2016.

“It was not solely an enormous emotional shock, it additionally got here with lots of sudden duty as I inherited one other enterprise on the similar 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 area I wanted to cope with each grief and sensible points.”

With six youngsters between them, Johansson and Liikamaa are additionally capable of take time with household whereas the opposite one holds the fort.

“If my youngsters want me, I shall be off with them – no query. We coordinate in order that key moments for our youngsters are protected, whereas the corporate nonetheless has a gentle 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 observe at enterprise consultancy Korn Ferry.

She’s noticed that co-CEOs are likely to work finest at impartial corporations with out advanced buildings, and with two folks that have already labored collectively.

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

“Leaders attempting to ascertain 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 finally change into the only real, core CEO, she provides.

“There is a super quantity of succession planning taking place for the time being. And there may be the fact that the pipeline of ‘ready-now’ CEOs has decreased during the last 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 lots of change and ambiguity each day.”

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

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

After their youngest little one began faculty final September, he arrange a consultancy that he works on throughout faculty hours.

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