Path to C-Suite

I don't have direct experience, but to the best extent of my knowledge, going from management consulting (MBB) to an upper-management role in a company (think 1-2 levels below c-suite unless you had a fuckton of experience in MBB), then working your way up from VP/Director to c-suite is the most well-trodden and linear path.

CFOs typically have accounting or IB backgrounds. Lots of CFOs do a few years in either IB/big 4, jump into a company at some middle-management position in a finance role, and climb the ranks.

CFO - Honestly not that hard in the scheme of things. This path is prob the most well-documented and consistent. Also much less desirable and (generally) powerful than CEO and COO. Just go into accounting/IB and wait a long time lmao. It'll open up if you're looking for it. Be forewarned - most companies are not based in NYC. It's really not that glamorous.

CEO - Depends. As people above have alluded to, lower F500 CEO probably isn't as desirable on an input/output basis as something like PE partner, but this is easily the most feasible. Go to McKinsey for a while, eventually make the jump to upper management, be much smarter than the rest of upper management (probably a given if you could hack it at McKinsey for a while), eventually get CEO.

The hard part about becoming CEO is that it involves a lot of waiting, and time is certainly money in the scheme of careers. Becoming an upper echelon CEO generally involves a loooot of waiting and doing well in multiple CEO roles/extremely sustained corporate growth. Every year you stay in a role you commit further into that path, and lose optionality outside of the path. This is why there's a lot of capable people and only X amount of CEO's - competition whittles down, people become complacent/anchored by family, they lose the political game, etc etc.

There are a few types of C-levels. I’ve found the older guys in established industries are strangely underpaid.

IE I would expect a head of growth or CMO at a DTC brand doing $20m to $50m to be making about $500k a year all in. Usually they are well under 40. 

Senior dev roles at startup about 300k all in now if Series A or later. 

Conversely your standard 50 something year old C level working for a co owned by PE is getting $300k to $500k and potential for $5m to $15m at exit but they are running a co doing $200m+.

Typically PE hired execs come from very vanilla backgrounds. Consulting, IB, PE, strategy @ f500. 

To make good money quickly as an operator you need massive equity exposure IMO. Tons of it. Not 0.001% 
 

A relative of mine is a CEO of a few companies ($2-5 million size companies, maybe more) he started and is an independent sponsor for a handful fo small LMM companies (wide variety of industries too - consumer/retail, healthcare, tech). His first job was not glamorous at all. He was hired as a temp for a no name consulting group within a F500 company. No story to the C-suite is linear. Everyone comes from different paths. My relative still pulls ~80 hours a week and travels constantly but doesn't answer to anyone.

One of my former mentors is a C-suite for a small public company and makes $1-2 million w/ a good amount in stock. Operational background who started working with the founder early on. One of those few people who became a millionaire while being an early-stage company employee.

My cousin is CTO of a company with >10k employees. He bounced around at a bunch of well known tech firms until landing this role

Worked as an analyst at a tech company with ~3k employees. What I noticed is that people are too pussy to bring up what they want out of their careers, and management won't go out of their way to assume. If I wanted to be CFO, the logical path at that company would be to be communicative to management, probably want me to get my CPA, manage a specific area in FP&A, then keep moving up the ladder. Note that this would take lots of time, 10+ years, if at the same company the whole time. It's definitely doable, but you need to be the best at what you do to get that recognition and be extremely vocal on where you want your career to go. The senior director of finance at that company was head of IR for a few years and just keeps moving up the ladder and managing more people, so a more direct path.

What I notice for the CEO route is also vocalizing this interest, but you end up working in different areas of the company. One talented woman who is definitely CEO-worthy worked in Sales for a specific vertical, moved into management for that vertical, then moved into a finance role, and now leads customer retention/customer success. Gives you a lot of exposure to most of the company to be able to lead all parts. However, she will definitely need to leave and either start her own company, or become new CEO of a much smaller company. That's usually how it goes, it seems.

Depends a lot on industry.. CEO typically come from P&L ownership GM positions:

- Product led companies will usually groom future BU / Product Area VP&GMs from the product / R&D org.

- Sales led companies will usually groom GMs from Sales leadership.

- Marketing led companies will usually groom GMs from Marketing leadership (esp. in CPG).

- Services companies will usually groom from Service BU leadership (think global head of IB or S&T, Global Head of Audit, head of a clinical group at a hospital, head of XYZ insurance line, head of NA commercial banking, head of WM, practice head in architecture etc). 

- Nat Res (mining, O&G) is usually engineers / geoscientists who switched to management

- Media & Ent is usually from content production roles

- Hospitality usually from branch operations (i.e. restaurant GM or area manager or VP Ops)

- Retail / Wholesale companies will usually groom from the buying / merch orgs or from retail operations. 

- Consulting -> strategy -> GM is a good way to kind-of bypass the come-up within the org but not every company takes super likely to ex-consultants. Sometimes you still have to do a tour of working in the “incubator org” first before getting the reigns.

- Also just founding a startup or standard cash flow company and taking the CEO position is another way. 

CFO is pretty standard - LDP / direct entry-level / post-MBA start or time spent in public accounting / high finance / consulting then lateral in and climb up.

CMO is also pretty standard - LDP / direct entry-level / post-MBA start or time spent at an agency / in consulting then lateral in and climb up

CTO is mostly rising up in the engineering org of a tech company (think: Jr IC -> Mid IC -> Sr IC -> Manager -> Director -> VP -> CTO) or being a technical co-founder at a startup

CIO / CISO is again either starting out (LDP / direct entry) or lateraling in (consulting / outsourced services firm) then rising up in the internal IT group at a non-tech company

COO in mfg heavy industries is mostly again starting in (LDP / direct entry) or lateraling in (consulting / logistics co / contract manufacturer / warehouse mgmt co) then rising up in the Ops function.

COO in high finance is mostly again either starting out or lateraling into a back office function and climbing the ladder. 

Trend goes on and on for stuff like “chief customer officer”, “chief product officer”, “chief revenue / commercial / growth / sales officer”, “chief HR officer”, “chief risk officer”, “chief compliance officer”, “chief audit executive”, “chief accounting officer”, “chief strategy officer”, “chief content officer”, “chief creative officer”, “chief investment officer”, “chief medical / nursing officer” etc etc etc