The influence of large multinational companies, mainly american, in a globalised world has made the term CEO, which is an abbreviation for Chief Executive Officer, became a common designation, even in countries of non-English-speaking, to the before called executive director or general manager of a company.
The term Chief Executive Officer, especially its abbreviation CEO, is now, today, the designation most commonly used to refer to higher authority within the hierarchy of a company.
The term CEO is considered to be more modern and impactful in the corporate world, lending more status to the holder of the office from which the word “president” or “executive director” that designate the same function. The CEO is so also, therefore, more effective and strong within the marketing strategies.
CEOs of companies very successful in recent years were key factors for which the term Chief Executive Officer/CEO were adopted on a global scale. Among these we can mention especially Steve Jobs, who was CEO of the company Apple, and Mark Zuckerberg CEO of Facebook.
What makes a CEO?
A CEO is the director responsible for the function of conducting the management of a company, defining what will be your vision and posture within the market and what are the strategies that will be adopted for the organization to be able to achieve your goals, while remaining competitive.
If a company has a president, the role of CEO, is subordinated only to him. However, it is quite common in the current corporate world that CEO and chairman are the same thing.
A Board of Directors, formed by representatives of the shareholders of the company, oversee and set the guidelines that the CEO has the function to put into practice.
To assist the work of the CEO, and as the size of the company, there is a certain number of directors of the child that have each a function of its own, the example of the Chief Financial Officer, which we can translate as the Chief Financial officer and the Chief Operating Officer, which may be understood as Operations Director, considered the right arm of the CEO.