Reaching the C-suite is a goal for many professionals—and for good reason: Joining the top echelon of a company brings prestige, a handsome salary and the opportunity to do interesting and rewarding work. But to get there requires more than skills and hard work. It also takes agility since the makeup of the C-suite is not static, and roles and responsibilities are always evolving. This means that a coveted top job today may be very different in five years—or may not exist at all.
This is borne out by research from Deloitte that shows how growing business complexity, economic uncertainty, regulatory demands, and a need for specialized leadership have led the C-suite to evolve significantly. The good news for would-be top executives is that the C-suite overall is growing: Deloitte’s analysis found that, between 2018 and 2023, top leadership teams at Fortune 500 companies grew 23% on average (from 6.7 executives to 8.2). This has meant that, in addition to long-time titles like CEO and CFO, titles like chief sustainability officer, chief communications officer, chief legal officer, and chief growth officer, are becoming more common.
This trend is also occurring outside of the Fortune 500, according to Tony Morales, vice chairman of N2Growth, a global executive search and leadership advisory firm, which recently recruited a new CFO for Medtronic. Family enterprises, large nonprofits, and PE-sponsored businesses all operate in environments with growth pressures and expectations for executives to manage risk and realize growth on multiple fronts, he said.
Companies have discovered that one way to mature and grow in a rapidly changing environment is to maximize interaction between the CEO and other company leaders, Morales told Fortune. “You do that most effectively through the composition of the C-suite,” he said.
To get a sense of just how much executive leadership has evolved, here are five ways the C-suite changed in the past 10 years:
More skills are needed.
The number of skills executives are asked to bring to the table for more established positions (like chief financial officer, chief human resources officer, and chief operating officer) has increased more than 20% from 2018 to 2023, according to Deloitte’s analysis of publicly available C-suite job posting data.
One example of a new skill in high demand for a traditional role: Job searches for CFOs are increasingly listing business strategy as a key quality, Elizabeth Moore, a senior manager and a data-sensing leader in Deloitte’s U.S. Executive Accelerators organization, recently told Fortune.
Dual C-suite appointments are more common.
It’s no longer rare for an executive to hold more than one C-suite position. For example, more finance chiefs are taking on the COO role. Fortune has begun tracking executive shifts at the Fortune 500 companies each week and found a growing trend of executives taking on new or combined roles in the C-suite, like the newly created role of chief financial and operating officer at Salesforce.
The makeup of C-suites is becoming more varied and distinct for each company.
Most companies are still led by a CEO with the CFO as the de facto number two, but beyond that titles vary significantly, according to the business model and operations of the company. Also, not every C-suite-sounding title reflects a top leadership position.
“Having a ‘chief X officer’ title doesn’t necessarily mean you’re in the C-suite,” Morales said. “It’s not uncommon to see a chief compliance officer reporting to a chief legal officer or a chief marketing officer reporting to a chief revenue officer,” he said.
Meanwhile, at tech giant Nvidia, CEO Jensen Huang has about 60 direct reports, Morales added.
The consolidation of commercial functions.
Roles like chief commercial officer, chief revenue officer, and chief distribution officer have all proliferated as a response to the desire to have one executive with responsibility for all of marketing, sales operations, go-to-market strategy, and business development.
“This trend is also still unfolding,” Morales said. For example, Zoetis, a Fortune 500 company, promoted Jamie Brannan to become its first-ever chief commercial officer in November, he said.
CEOs taking an active role in security strategies.
That means cybersecurity, data, and digital as functional remits having an active role in the C-suite, Morales said. Chief information security officers (CISOs) are collaborating more with CEOs. For example, a recent report by Splunk states that 82% of CISOs surveyed interact directly with the chief executive. Also, about eight out of 10 CISOs participate in board meetings. CISOs are cementing their place in the C-suite.
