The average CEO of a Fortune 500 company is about 57 years old. But for the 10 youngest leaders on the list, age is just a number. A host of executives in their 30s and 40s have guided their companies to colossal success – most in under a decade at the helm.
Below, we’ve tabulated the 10 youngest Fortune 500 CEOs, based on data from their companies and from S&P Global Market Intelligence, as of May 19.
10. Matthew J. Meloy
Age: 43
CEO Tenure: 2 years
Company: Targa Resources
Fortune 500 Rank: #216
Revenue: $16.9 billion
Meloy became CEO of Targa Resources in March 2020, after nearly 15 years with the company, including eight years as chief financial officer and prior roles as vice president of finance, treasurer, and executive vice president.
9. Robert L. Reffkin
Age: 42
CEO tenure: 9 years
Company: Compass Real Estate
Fortune 500 Rank: #495
Revenue: $6.4 billion
Reffkin founded Compass, a real estate platform, in 2012, after working in banking at Goldman Sachs and Lazard and consulting at McKinsey. He took Compass from obscurity a decade ago to one of the largest-ever real-estate IPOs last year, and is one of six Black Fortune 500 CEOs – and the first-ever Black founder to make the list.
8. Sumit Singh
Age: 42
CEO tenure: 4 years
Company: Chewy
Fortune 500 Rank: #394
Revenue: $8.9 billion
Singh was promoted from chief operating officer to CEO in March 2018, a year before he took the PetSmart subsidiary public, cementing the trajectory of what was at that time the largest-ever acquisition of an ecommerce business. He arrived at Chewy after nearly two decades in management at Dell and Amazon.
7. Hassane S. El-Khoury
Age: 41
CEO tenure: 1.5 years
Company: ON Semiconductor
Fortune 500 Rank: #483
Revenue: $6.7 billion
El-Khoury was elected to lead onsemi in December 2020, after more than a decade at rival semiconductor firm Cypress, including a nearly five-year stint as Cypress CEO. El-Khoury immigrated from Lebanon to the U.S. at age 17.
6. Bret Taylor
Age: 41
Co-CEO tenure: 6 months
Company: Salesforce
Fortune 500 Rank: #136
Revenue: $26.4 billion
Taylor joined Salesforce shortly after it acquired his company, Quip, in 2016, and was soon serving in senior executive roles, including consecutive two-year stints as chief product officer and chief operating officer. He’s been co-CEO with Marc Benioff since November 2021.
5. Sarah M. London
Age: 41
CEO tenure: 2 months
Company: Centene
Fortune 500 Rank: #26
London got the top job at Centene earlier this year, after 79-year-old Michael Neirdoff vacated the position for a medical leave of absence. Prior to her appointment, London was the vice chairman of Centene’s board of directors. She has a background in both healthcare and tech, including stints as Centene’s SVP of technology innovation and modernization and as chief product officer for Optum Analytics.
4. Ernest C. Garcia III
Age: 40
Company: Carvana
Fortune 500 rank: 290
Revenue: $12.8 billion
Like many of the youngest CEOs on the list, Garcia is a founder, having cocreated the company at age 30. He’s also chairman of Carvana’s board. Garcia’s father, Ernest Garcia II, is still Carvana’s largest shareholder, but also employed his son for over five years at his used-car retailing and financing firm, DriveTime.
3. Eric Wu
Age: 39
CEO tenure: 8 years
Fortune 500 rank: #425
When he was 31 years old in 2014, Wu co-founded Opendoor Technologies, one of the major “ibuyers,” or instant buyers of real estate across the country. He has said he spent his college years amassing a real-estate portfolio that, by the time he graduated from the University of Arizona in 2005, spanned about 25 properties. He’s currently worth $1.2 billion.
Age: 39
CEO tenure: 10 years
Company: Coinbase Global
Revenue: $7.8 billion
Armstrong founded Coinbase in June 2012, which has grown to become one of the largest exchanges in the cryptocurrency space with a disclosed user base of about 98 million verified accounts. He says the idea for the company came to him in his late 20s when he was a technical product manager at Airbnb and noticing how difficult it could be to send money internationally.
1. Mark Zuckerberg
CEO tenure: 18 years
Fortune 500 rank: #27
Zuckerberg is the youngest Fortune 500 CEO. The story of how he developed “The Facebook” in his dorm as a 19-year-old Harvard student is pop culture lore, and was dramatized in a 2011 Aaron Sorkin film, “The Social Network.” Facebook’s IPO in 2008 made Zuckerberg, at 23, the youngest self-made billionaire in history.
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