College Majors of Top CEOs
Many top CEOs headed into college with full intent to jump onto the business track and follow their passion. Other CEOs pursued their zeal for niche-oriented subjects unrelated to business yet ended up landing top jobs in various companies.
Collectively, today's top CEOs possess a lot of valuable knowledge: some with conventional business degrees and others with non-business degrees that prove to be quite valuable in the business sector.
CEOs on the Business Track
Business Week reports that many distinguished CEOs knew right from the start that they wanted to join the corporate business ranks. John Chambers of Cisco Systems attended West Virginia University with a business career in mind. Brian Roberts attended Wharton and today is CEO of Comcast. Steve Odland pursued a business degree at Notre Dame and landed the top job at Office Depot.
Non-business Major CEOs
Take a look at Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard and now Republican nominee for a Californian U.S. Senate seat. As collegeboard.com points out, Fiorina pursued philosophy and medieval history during college, attempted law school, eventually found her niche in business, and later pursued a degree. Her merge with Compaq is viewed by many as an influential and important business move.
John Mack, former CEO of Morgan Stanley, earned a history degree from Duke University in 1968. Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com, holds "a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College in philosophy and Asian studies, a master’s degree in philosophy from Cambridge University as a Marshall Scholar, and a doctorate in philosophy from Stanford University”—quite the mix of educational backgrounds to bring to the business environment.
USA Today reports that former Walt Disney CEO Michael Eisner "never took a single business course, getting a double major in English and theater" at Denison University. Eisner's successor, Robert Iger, majored in Television and Radio at Ithaca College.
Diverse knowledge is valuable in the business environment. While traditional coursework is definitely applicable and helpful when climbing the corporate ladder, it is important not to rule out the non-conventional path. Various educational backgrounds have much to offer a business. Students in any degree program can be tomorrow's CEOs, and with the continuous growth of distance learning, the next generation of CEOs may likely emerge from online degree programs.
