Talk:Chief executive officer/Archive 1

Controversy about compensation for CEOs
It's only a debate among non-economists. Put it in perspective: the average professional athlete makes more than the average CEO. Who contributes more to society? I won't argue the question either way, but the fact that the answer is unclear (or, at least, that there is a lack of agreement) proves my point. Wikiant 13:53, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Shouldn't this article mention something about the debate about the excessive wages/perks CEOs enjoy? Borisblue 05:12, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Confusion
This article doesn't really tell me what powers the CEO possess in a company, or the difference between the CEO, president, and chairman of a company. --Apostrophe 06:49, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
 * That comment was made in December 2005. It's now January 2007 and the article still doesn't say much of anything about it. This is not a good thing, IMO. RobertM525 06:55, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the article tries to clarify, yet still leaves the reader somewhat confused. The relation to the Chairman/Chairperson/Chair is not clear. Neither this article nor the article on the Chair (nor the articles on the Board of Directors, on Board titles etc.) sufficiently describe the general functions and responsibilities of these positions. Doing so would help clarify their roles vis-a-vis each other. Is it actually correct to state that the CEO is the "highest-ranking corporate officer, administrator, corporate administrator, executive, or executive officer, in charge of total management of a corporation..." ? Would that actually not be the Chair? Or should the sentence be phrased differently. Isn't the CEO a full-time hired position in charge of daily management (=executive), whereas the Chair is the highest ranking position as heading the Board of Directors and guiding its meetings and actions, while not in a full-time position. The article identifies some of the real, factual confusion for these terminologies among UK, the US and some European usage, as well as non-profit usages. That's good and helps a lot. Yet some of these clarifications are (IMO wrongly) contradicted in the article on the Chair where, for example, the "term president is often used interchangeably with chair", etc. So, this entire topic would benefit from some further attention. JeyRo 12:39, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Countries' "CEOs"
Anyone mind if "The term "Chief Executive" is also sometimes used to refer to the politician who is the active ruler of a nation, in circumstances where the titles are not clear. For example, in Israel the Prime Minister of Israel is the nation's chief executive, while the President of Israel is not." is changed to "The term "Chief Executive" is also sometimes used to refer to the politician who is the active ruler of a nation, in circumstances where the titles are not clear. For example, in Spain the Prime Minister is the nation's chief executive, while the King is not."

The reason to my proposal is that jewish people are often seen as the capitalists, and it might not be good to further extend this image by using their government as an example of a capitalist company-like system. --HJV 00:10, 13 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Countries don't have CEOs. The have chief executives, not chief executive officers. The parts of this article about government leaders should be moved to the Head of government article, or perhaps a separate "Chief executive" article should be created. JHP 02:57, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Skill Requirements
I originally added the skill requirements and I can't see what is false about it.Patchouli 01:25, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I added an overview of responsibilities because it's important to understand the duties of a CEO. This point is not clear on this page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Starfounder (talk • contribs) 19:11, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Europe
The article states "In the European Union there are two separate boards". This is not always the case, and varies a lot from country to country or depending on the company. In Germany for example it is very common for there to be two seperate boards, whereas in France it is much less common. laug 19:21, 7 April 2006 (UTC)


 * and in the UK (which is a member of the EU!), it is practically unknown Jezza (talk) 01:18, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Pluralisation
Is the correct plural form of chief executive chiefs executive or executive chiefs? Ben Hawkins 23:01, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

standardizing names
Shouldn't the name be Chief Executive Officer (with caps). After all, it is a formal title. Chief Financial Officer, but Chief operating officer uses lower case. Some standardization is needed. Cacophony 04:50, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

capitalisation
the capitalisation of the subject is ambiguous in the article
 * Meaning what exactly? Uncle  Montezuma  17:10, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Chairman vs CEO
In the UK (and I believe the US)it is regarded as best practice to have distinct roles for a Chairman and a Chief Executive Officer. They should not be the same person except where it is impractical to have two people.

The role of the chairman is to chair the board of directors and therefore he/she is responsible for the activities of the board as distinct from the activities of executive management. The chairman will often be a non-executive director. The board is responsible for setting strategy, looking after the interests of the stakeholders, and appointing the senior management team.

The Chief Executive Officer is the head of executive management and responsible for the daily running of the company. As such he/she is answerable to the Board and hence the Chairman.

These roles are set out in the Combined Code on Corporate Governance. Davejblair 02:45, 20 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Cite your reference and add it to the article, Davejblair. If you're not sure how to cite a reference, see WP:Footnotes. Welcome :) --SueHay 03:17, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Origin
Does anyone know where the term comes from? fkm:80.218.190.120 12:15, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Criticism
I've removed the following section pending discussion:

''In the United States, because of a taxation system that favors the wealthy, and because of trends on Wall Street, the compensation of CEOs has grown to astronomical levels. For example, in the 1950's a CEO might have earned 30 times the average salary of employees in their company, now they might earn 500 times the average salary. Some CEOs earn tens of millions of dollars every year, not including bonuses and stock options, which could range into the hundreds of millions of dollars. This for what some would argue is not a lot of work, as CEOs are usually removed from the day-to-day operations of their companies. An example of this is when Disney hired Michael Ovitz in 1995 to be Disney's president. Ovitz resigned under pressure 14 months later and, due to a stock options vesting provision, netted $140 million dolars.''

There seems to be quite a bit of uncited WP:NPOV issues with this material and the facts and figures are unreferenced as well. Criticism on escalating executive compensation is common, and it should not be difficult to find some neutral way to present this without using personal commentary. Kuru talk  13:35, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

languages and equivalents
Going from the COO (chief operating officer)article in english, I changed the language to german, then to italian, then to french, and then back to english which gave me the CEO article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.184.41.8 (talk) 15:30, 19 February 2009 (UTC)