A new working paper has found that chief executives in corporate America are being appointed at significantly older ages than in previous decades, signaling a structural shift in how firms evaluate leadership talent in an increasingly complex business environment.
The study, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, documents that the age at which CEOs are appointed has risen sharply over the past several decades. The increase is not uniform across the corporate landscape, but largely concentrated outside the largest listed firms, where CEO selection patterns have changed more dramatically.
Using newly assembled firm-level data covering a wide set of companies over multiple decades, the researchers show that the rise in CEO age is primarily driven by longer and more diverse external career paths before appointment. Future CEOs are increasingly spending extended periods building experience across multiple firms, roles and industries before reaching the top job.
The paper also fund that these patterns are difficult to reconcile with explanations based on demographics, schooling or internal tenure alone. Instead, the evidence points to a deeper structural shift in labor-market matching, where firms are increasingly optimizing for breadth of experience rather than early peak performance.
The authors frame the shift within a matching framework in which rising demand for generalist human capital leads firms to "trade off peak ability for accumulated experience," particularly as operating environments become more uncertain and complex. In this context, leadership selection is no longer primarily about identifying the fastest-rising internal candidate, but rather the executive with the most diversified managerial exposure.
To examine the forces behind this change, the study uses variation in corporate consulting and advisory networks. It finds that firms more embedded in these networks place greater weight on diversified managerial experience when selecting CEOs. This suggests that exposure to broader strategic and advisory ecosystems is influencing how boards evaluate leadership potential.
The paper also identifies a supply-side response. As firms increasingly demand generalist skills, prospective executives appear to be adjusting their own career trajectories. The study notes evidence of a "supply-side response in which prospective CEOs broaden their skill portfolio," indicating that future leaders are deliberately accumulating cross-functional and cross-industry experience in anticipation of evolving selection criteria.
The increase in CEO appointment age is especially pronounced in firms outside the very largest corporations. This suggests that governance structure and internal succession pipelines in large companies may still favor more structured leadership development, while smaller firms rely more heavily on external hiring and broader career experience when selecting CEOs.
The findings are consistent with a broader reconfiguration of executive labor markets documented in governance research. Data from executive search firm Spencer Stuart shows that CEOs in major U.S. companies are typically appointed in their mid-to-late 50s, with a gradual upward trend over time in both age and external experience at appointment.
Similarly, governance analytics from Equilar indicate that CEO tenure paths have become more varied, with a growing share of executives holding senior roles across multiple organizations before reaching the top position. These patterns align closely with the NBER findings on longer, more diversified pre-CEO careers.
