Chief executive officer

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"Chief Executive" redirects here. For other uses, see Chief Executive (disambiguation). "CEOs" redirects here. For the island, see Ceos.

A chief executive officer (CEO) or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer (executive) or administrator in charge of total management of a corporation, company, organization, or agency, reporting to the board of directors. In internal communication and press releases, many companies capitalize the term and those of other high positions, even when they are not proper nouns.

International use

In some European Union countries, there are two separate boards, one executive board for the day-to-day business and one supervisory board for control purposes (elected by the shareholders). In these countries, the CEO presides over the executive board and the chairman presides over the supervisory board, and these two roles will always be held by different people. This ensures a distinction between management by the executive board and governance by the supervisory board. This allows for clear lines of authority. The aim is to prevent a conflict of interest and too much power being concentrated in the hands of one person. There is a strong parallel here with the structure of government, which tends to separate the political cabinet from the management civil service.

In other parts of the globe, such as Asia, its possible to have two or three CEOs in charge of one corporation. In the UK, many charities and government agencies are headed by a chief executive who is answerable to a board of trustees or board of directors. In the UK, the chair (of the board) in public companies is more senior than the chief executive. Most public companies now split the roles of chair and chief executive. In France, a CEO/MD is known as the "PDG" (président directeur général); in Sweden, the CEO/MD is known as "VD" (verkställande direktör); in Spain, the usual name is "director general"; while in Italy, the position is called "AD" (which stands for amministratore delegato). In Denmark and Norway the CEO is known as the "administrerende direktør", abbr. adm.dir.