• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

Jeff Bezos wants the bottom half of earners to pay zero income tax—he says nurses making just $75K should save $12K a year

2

Jamie Dimon said the American Dream was slipping away. JPMorgan just put $40 million on the table to fix it

3

The river that supplies 40 million Americans is down to 23% — and about to make a $25 million bet on one fish

1

Jeff Bezos wants the bottom half of earners to pay zero income tax—he says nurses making just $75K should save $12K a year

2

Jamie Dimon said the American Dream was slipping away. JPMorgan just put $40 million on the table to fix it

3

The river that supplies 40 million Americans is down to 23% — and about to make a $25 million bet on one fish
CommentaryLeadership

The next C-suite pivot is from a DEI to a DOGE mindset—and leadership roles are in for a shakeup

By
John Rau 
John Rau 
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
John Rau 
John Rau 
Down Arrow Button Icon
March 13, 2025, 12:29 PM ET

John Rau is a four-time CEO, most recently of Miami Corporation. He currently serves as the Poling Chair of Business and Government Leadership at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business.

C-suite leadership is becoming ever more important in a bumpier business environment.
C-suite leadership is becoming ever more important in a bumpier business environment.getty

Serving on corporate boards myself, I could feel it happening. But recent research suggests the C-suite shift is even larger than expected. According to Deloitte’s latest analysis of Fortune 500 top officers and nearly 46,000 C-suite job postings between 2018 and 2023, the top leadership teams within Fortune 50 companies grew 23% on average from 2018 to 2023 (from 6.7 executives to 8.2).

A decade ago, a typical C-suite lineup would include the Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer, and Chief Technology Officer (in addition to the CEO). For financial institutions, it could also include the Chief Investment Officer or Chief Risk Officer. Sometimes, a Chief Marketing Officer would be added to the mix.

The corporate landscape is different today. From 2018 to 2023, C-suite roles within the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) function increased 230%; communications and public relations roles increased 133%; legal roles increased 127%; and strategy roles increased 94%. This growth is not surprising, given the increased popularity of Chief Sustainability Officers or Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Officers.

We understand why this happened, also understanding that many companies have started pulling back or pulling out of initiatives that were commonplace in 2020. BlackRock and Meta are just two prominent examples, with ESG- and DEI- related initiatives not proving to be what shareholders want or making them better off.

But what about the next trend to come? Will the C-suite have to shrink?

I wouldn’t bet on it. As a four-time CEO, companies I know face a much more complex challenge today: The business environment, which has generally been supportive and benign, is getting bumpier and more dangerous. The U.S. economy is overdue for an “adjustment” and perhaps even a recession. The path through government debt and deficits, a rearrangement of global trade, and new technological trends is unclear. Artificial intelligence will create entirely new categories of winners and losers, forcing people to add new skill sets and cope with displacement. In the process, C-suite leadership becomes all the more important.

Clarity in C-suite roles

Business advice is a dime a dozen, but not necessarily right. Most prescriptions lean into fuzzy buzzwords like “increased collaboration” without addressing the lack of role clarity in overlapping job responsibilities. Adding a Chief Human Resources Officer to the C-suite to rearrange the skill mix is another common prescription, but solutions need to be crisper and driven by the urgency that it will take to get ahead of the current waves—and not be capsized by them.

Leading a “non-linear” change agenda is challenging, but there are three key principles that must work in parallel:

  1. Bring clarity to the outcomes necessary for survival; communicate broadly about the plans, strategies, and milestones as you and your teams commit; and keep the sense of urgency high.
  2. Define C-suite roles unambiguously and with authority, so accountability for success or failure is attached to individuals, and allow those leaders to determine the level and form of collaboration needed—without presuming one style fits all.
  3. Define all roles exclusively in terms of output, not process.

There are only two types of output that matter in the C-suite:

  1. Making the product competitive while growing the customer base and satisfaction.
  2. Building capabilities that prepare for where the world is heading.

On the first point, profit centers can be based on geography, customer type, or product groups, but the leaders in charge should have the profit and loss responsibility that sums to the company as a whole—they live at the front of the battle lines, seeing wins and losses in real time. On the second point, the most significant change will come down to dividing the Chief Technology Officer role (technology is a process, not an output) into three distinct jobs:

  • The technology needed to match competition on product features and customer share, service, and connection.
  • The technology needed to improve workforce and product productivity, and finding the skilled people to do that, determining which part of the existing workforce can be reoriented and retrained to contribute to that outcome.
  • The technology needed to keep data and processes secure, reliable, and capable of meeting the current and anticipated demands for compliance and transparency related to risk threshold.

Southern Company is a case study for this kind of organizational clarity. Leaders of geographies—electric and natural gas utilities—have substantial autonomy as well as accountability. They are supported by two other line units: One in charge of power generations and another that operates transmission, storage, and backup for renewable energy. And they avoid common support functions so each line unit is tailored to their own challenges and cultures.

Put it all together, and the C-suite’s current challenges have little to no historical precedent. Most current executives have grown up in a “peacetime” economy with consistent tailwinds and protections from the most destructive forms of competition, and Americans have had consistently better weaponry —including technological superiority—at our disposal than most rivals.

The result? We could afford to take on process-focused tasks related to DEI or ESG that were unconnected to winning.

Leadership strategy

Looking ahead, the C-suite should recall U.S. military organization when faced with a world war. Generals were assigned responsibilities for specific theaters of operation to engage the other side, and other generals were tasked with building the winning weaponry to protect our troops and our territories (infantry, armor, artillery, air power, and so forth) so that the field “chiefs” and commanders could pick the right mix to survive and win.

In a time of rapid, discontinuous change, the proper mindset is to “try it, fix it, try again.” Leaders running process-based functions have a mindset that, if the process is followed, the solution will follow too. And that may work when known problems are being solved. But, war presents unknown problems, and only the line managers know what’s working and what isn’t. 

The days of peace are over, so it’s time to refocus the C-suite. That means putting it on a war footing.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

Read more:

  • Top candidates are avoiding the CEO role despite the pay. Here’s how to make the gig worth taking
  • I’m an ex-CEO. My peers are facing the reality that many Gen Zers see corporate America as the enemy
  • Job applicants say the search has never been harder, but C-suite leaders are losing sleep over attracting top talent
  • What’s it like to be CEO? In a word, lonely—and you might not know for years, or decades, whether you did a good job
About the Author
By John Rau 
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon

Latest in Commentary

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Commentary

lee
Commentarystock exchanges
Texas Stock Exchange CEO: exchanges can build on Exxon’s retail model to rein in proxy advisors
By James H. LeeMay 28, 2026
2 hours ago
suerken
CommentaryRestaurants
Wendy’s U.S. President: the CEO burger battles exposed a truth every brand leader needs to hear
By Pete SuerkenMay 28, 2026
4 hours ago
g
CommentaryTraining
We gave our 5,000 employees a week to do nothing but learn AI. We learned the biggest blockers are human ones 
By Rob GiglioMay 28, 2026
5 hours ago
bd
CommentaryLeadership
The boardroom wants answers on AI. Are you ready?
By Brandi ThomasMay 28, 2026
7 hours ago
ai
CommentaryGoogle
How Sam Altman fooled Sundar Pichai — and pushed Google into cannibalizing itself
By Sunil SharanMay 27, 2026
1 day ago
g
CommentaryLeadership
I’ve been a CEO for 25 years. The AI hype and hysteria is getting old
By Gil MandelzisMay 27, 2026
1 day ago

Most Popular

Jeff Bezos wants the bottom half of earners to pay zero income tax—he says nurses making just $75K should save $12K a year
Success
Jeff Bezos wants the bottom half of earners to pay zero income tax—he says nurses making just $75K should save $12K a year
By Preston ForeMay 21, 2026
7 days ago
Jamie Dimon said the American Dream was slipping away. JPMorgan just put $40 million on the table to fix it
Banking
Jamie Dimon said the American Dream was slipping away. JPMorgan just put $40 million on the table to fix it
By Nick LichtenbergMay 27, 2026
1 day ago
The river that supplies 40 million Americans is down to 23% — and about to make a $25 million bet on one fish
Environment
The river that supplies 40 million Americans is down to 23% — and about to make a $25 million bet on one fish
By Dorany Pineda, Brittany Peterson and The Associated PressMay 27, 2026
1 day ago
Current price of oil as of May 27, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of oil as of May 27, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerMay 27, 2026
1 day ago
Techlash grows in education: 'My daughter went to middle school and was sent home with a screen addiction in her backpack'
North America
Techlash grows in education: 'My daughter went to middle school and was sent home with a screen addiction in her backpack'
By Jocelyn Gecker and The Associated PressMay 26, 2026
2 days ago
Even if every California billionaire left tomorrow, it would take 25 years for the state to lose as much as it stands to gain from proposed wealth tax
Economy
Even if every California billionaire left tomorrow, it would take 25 years for the state to lose as much as it stands to gain from proposed wealth tax
By Tristan BoveMay 27, 2026
24 hours ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.