For aspiring business leaders, hard work pays off, sometimes even in the form of a fast track to the CEO position.
The leaders most likely to get there are at Fortune's The most powerful rising CEOs The list, a collection of 25 rising stars at Fortune 500 companies. But how they reached top positions at companies like Walmart, Amazon, and Apple is not an easy story to tell, especially from an educational perspective.
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While some took more traditional routes, studying business and economics at school and later obtaining a high school diploma Master of Business AdministrationOthers chose less popular paths, such as studying subjects such as physics, political science, or pharmacology.
However, they have at least one thing in common: they all value education enough to earn bachelor's degrees from universities of all sizes around the world. With the exception of the University of Michigan — where PepsiCo's Ram Krishnan and Foot Locker's Frank Bracken studied — all of the most influential rising CEOs attended unique schools as undergraduates.
Educating Fortune's Most Powerful Rising CEOs in Numbers:
- 100% have a bachelor's degree
- 60% enrolled in postgraduate studies
- 40% have an MBA
- 16% attended the Ivy League
- 40% studied engineering or computer science
Leaders also largely did not attend schools that were generally considered the best of the best; Only four of the leaders earned a degree from an Ivy League school.
The most powerful rising CEOs are different Leaders in Fortune's Future 50 lista group of companies best suited for long-term growth. Some CEOs of these companies do not have any university degree at all, considering it a waste of time. On the other hand, others pursued doctoral degrees to be leaders in their fields.
On both lists, one thing in common was the number of business leaders with degrees in subjects such as computer science and engineering. Both also have a large number of individuals who earned a degree outside the United States
A word cloud of college majors for Fortune's most powerful rising CEOs.
However, the education of the most powerful rising executives is very similar to that of Fortune 1000 CEOs, at least in terms of an MBA degree. About 40% of it Fortune 1000 CEOs He holds a graduate degree in business administration.
