Stewart 1

Candace Stewart

BUS1010-514

12/9/2017

Life as A CEO

Job Description and Duties

Being a CEO, or in other words a Chief Executive Officer, means a number of

responsibilities that will later influence major consequences, good and bad, in business.

With being the highest rank within the duties of a company, comes with many

responsibilities regarding business decisions and meeting the needs of the employees,

customers, investors and the community while keeping in line with the law. (What do

CEOs do? A CEO Job Description)

The CEO is responsible for creating and implementing a strategic business plan

for the business, (Heathfield) while identifying the companys mission and goals.

(Belonwu) In some cases, the CEO may have founded the business or own the business,

which makes the commitment to the business important. (Heathfield)

In a small business, a CEO has similar roles to a corporate CEO, but some

differences as well. A corporate CEO has more money and resources to work with,
 Stewart 2

while a small business CEO is more limited in resources. This makes the role of a CEO

in a small business more challenging, but still very important and worthwhile. (Walker)

By having the role of Chief Executive Officer in a smaller business, there is

constant communication. In any business, communication is crucial in order to run

smoothly. It is a task to make sure all of the departments, as in marketing, Sales,

Finance and Development, are working together effectively. However, many small

businesses do not have departments in line or created yet, though it is actually also the

CEOs job to do so. (Walker)

Communication is not only important within the company, but with the

public as well. Publicizing and promoting the products or services of the company is a

big part of being the CEO. (Belonwu) With doing this, CEOs usually represent the

company at conferences or other events. It is also important to make these products or

services available to the public as quickly but efficiently as possible in order to beat the

competition. (Belonwu) Promoting the product or services and beating competition is

what will make the company profits.

For a business to run smoothly and effectively, the CEO determines what jobs

should be within a company in order to create the most revenue. (Walker) Though

while creating these different jobs, the CEO might also be taking on multiple roles

themselves in order to maintain a small business. The CEO must also keep the
 Stewart 3

responsibility to hire potential candidates for these jobs, as well as fire non-performers

within these jobs. (What do CEOs do? A CEO Job Description)

General Education Experience

The chances of someone becoming a CEO without any education or experience is

very unlikely, unless they are the founder. (Stadler) The minimum education of most

chief executive officer positions is a bachelor degree in business or a business related

field. (How to Become a Chief Executive Officer (CEO)) This could include accounting

or economics, and it could be beneficial to study law (Stadler) or liberal arts. (How to

Become a Chief Executive Officer (CEO))

Most known CEOs also have chosen to pursue a Master of Business

Administration (MBA) or another similar graduate degree. (How to Become a Chief

Executive Officer (CEO)) CEOs also consider Voluntary Certification, which manifests

the knowledge and competence in a certain field or degree. (How to Become a Chief

Executive Officer (CEO))

This applies more to a corporate company, of course. Becoming the CEO of a

smaller company is most likely by actually being the owner or founder. However, it is

still important and would be beneficial to have education and background to be a CEO

of any size of company.

General Career Path

 Stewart 4

Chief Executive Officers is responsible for growth and performance of the

company, thus anyone wanting to become a CEO- either corporate or small business-

needs to have experience in carrying out these responsibilities. If owner of a small

business, it is important to balance the roles of being the owner and a CEO. (Walker,

How to become a CEO in your small business: CEOwnership)

Being a skilled worker and working for a company where it is likely to

gain recognition will result in working up to being a skillful CEO. In a larger business,

or a corporation, whatever position started with, it is important to be an expert in that

field. In addition, there might be a better chance of becoming a CEO in a company that

is starting out, not already a successful, recognized business. For example, it is unlikely

that someone will work up to being the CEO of Google from the bottom, for this is

already a highly developed company with positions filled. (Brodsky)

Average Salary

Depending on the industry, small business CEOs make an average salary

ranging from $109,000 to $176,000. Education/government/non-profit organizations

being the lowest, and hospitality/leisure and retail/wholesale being the highest. (How

Much Do Small Business CEOs Make?)

For a larger business, the national average annual salary for a CEO position is

about $194,350. Take into consideration however, that this includes businesses that are
 Stewart 5

large, but some that are even larger and making millions of dollars. In these larger

companies, CEOs in the United States can make an average of $767,171 as of this year.

(Chief Executive Officer Salaries) In Utah, however, the annual salary is $158,930 to

$183,610 as of last year. (Occupational Employment and Wages, May 2016)

Career Outlook

Chief executive officer employment is expected to grow 8% by the year 2026,

which is as fast as average for all occupations. The employment of top executives in

general is 2,572,000 nationally, with 223,260 being exclusively chief executive positions.

(Top Executives) In Utah, the number of positions is at about 3,650 specifically.

(Occupational Employment and Wages, May 2016)

New jobs are available every single day. Businesses and new ideas are constantly

in the making and there is always room for innovations. With the right business

decisions and depending on the strength of the economy, this factor makes the

possibility and future of chief executive jobs very open and attainable.

Bio of someone in the profession

Whitney Keyes is the CEO and founder of WK Productions, which is a strategic

communications-consulting firm in Seattle, WA. (Brittney Morgan) She studied theater

and communication arts and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in journalism and public

relations in 1989 from Pacific Lutheran University. (Whitney Keyes) Later, she managed
 Stewart 6

Keyes Minas Contemporary Craft Gallery until 1994, and then worked for the city of

Tacomas Economic Development Division. (Whitney Keyes) Now, she has been

working as a senior Microsoft manager, a strategic advisor for American Express, and a

marketing consultant to many more. (About Whitney Keyes)

Keyes states that she loves the freedom that comes with being a CEO. She gets to

set her own schedule, define her own strategies for the business, and choose the clients

and projects for the business. (Brittney Morgan) By making her own decisions regarding

the company, Keyes has had many opportunities including traveling to Africa and Asia

to support the U.S. State department to help social entrepreneurs and publishing her

own book.

Keyes also explains the disadvantage she experiences while being a CEO. She

states that she not only dislikes, she hates the technology issues that need to be

managed, as like crashing and hacking of servers. (Brittney Morgan) She also explains

that it is a daily challenge to stay in stop of responding to emails. It goes against my

core values to not instantly reply to everyone, but as CEO I've had to shift my priorities

and some of my values as the company has grown. (Brittney Morgan)

Pros and Cons

The first beneficial outcome that comes to mind from being a CEO is the

privilege of planning your own schedule and being your own boss. Even though CEOs
 Stewart 7

need to account for the time being spent for work, there is still some freedom involved,

which is an important thing personally and can be a great thing if balanced correctly.

CEOs get to create the teams that will be working on the company and has the

advantage of creating the strategic plan for the companys goals. This allows CEOs to

set the cultural attitudes in the workplace and run the company as he or she would like.

Even though time consuming, it is rewarding in the end if or when the plan that

was set for the company was successful. Especially if the business is thriving from

successful business plans, this now ensures job stability and high compensation.

However, it is rewarding in itself to see the company grow and flourish from all of the

hard work and ambition. Let alone the jobs that were created in the process and the

benefits the successful business will have on employees and the community as well.

The first unfortunate outcome, however, is the fact that one out of many duties of

a CEO is not only to hire people, but to fire people as well. If someone is no performing

and it is affecting potential outcomes for the business to be successful, the CEO has to

make the hard decision to let them go or not. Not to mention the chance and

consequences of poor communication and like Whitney Keyes mentioned, technological

problems.

The workload and pressure of fulfilling the duties that come with being a CEO is

tremendous. A huge workload comes with a sacrifice of time as well. Being in charge of
 Stewart 8

the company will take up a good amount of time and energy, but ends up to be very

rewarding. As the head of the company, all of the important final decisions regarding

the company are up to the CEO and the CEO only. Others will be there for advice,

though the CEO is the one who makes the decisions and implements it, which affects

the entire business for better or for worse. Travel could be a big part of this job as well,

which could be either a bad thing, or a good thing depending on personal preferences.

My fit with this career

I have always liked the idea of being my own boss. Even though CEOs need to

make the plenty of time it takes to run the business, it would be advantageous to be able

to plan my own schedule. Especially since I seem to be able to balance and plan my

time well. At least most of the time, and in my own opinion. The ability to be able to

own and run my own business with creating my own teams is also a big advantage,

because I get to choose how my business is ran.

Being a CEO is like being the leader of a company. Throughout my time spent in

college, I have found out about myself that I naturally become the leader of group

projects and I realized I actually enjoy and prefer it. I work well in teams, but I prefer

being able to assign the tasks and implement the goals of the group. I am someone who

likes to make sure that the tasks are in order and being done efficiently and that the

goals of the group are met.

 Stewart 9

Works Cited
"About Whitney Keyes." n.d. Whitney Keyes. Web. 11 12 2017.

Belonwu, Valentine. "What's the Role of a CEO in a Small Business?" 10 3 2013.

BusinessGross. Web. 10 12 2017.

Brittney Morgan, Whitney Keyes. "8 CEOs Reveal What They Love (And Hate) About
Their Jobs." 27 7 2015. Business News Daily. Web. 11 12 2017.

Brodsky, Jonathan. "What position do most CEOs hold before they become CEO?" 11 2
2015. Quora. Web. 10 12 2017.

"Chief Executive Officer Salaries." 2017. salary.com. Web. 11 12 2017.

Heathfield, Susan M. "What Does a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Do?" 29 8 2017. the
balance. Web. 10 12 2017.

"How Much Do Small Business CEOs Make?" n.d. OPENForum. Web. 10 12 2017.

"How to Become a Chief Executive Officer (CEO)." n.d. Study.com. Web. 10 12 2017.

"Occupational Employment and Wages, May 2016." 2016. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Web.
10 12 2017.

Stadler, Christian. "How To Become A CEO: These Are The Steps You Should Take." 12
3 2015. Forbes. Web. 10 12 2017.

"Top Executives." 24 10 2017. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Web. 10 12 2017.

Walker, Amy. "How to become a CEO in your small business: CEOwnership." 28 2 2017.
Amy Walker Consulting. Web. 10 12 2017.

. "What is the CEO Responsibility in a Small Business?" 17 2 2017. Amy Walker

Consulting. Web. 10 12 2017.

"What do CEOs do? A CEO Job Description." n.d. Stever Robbins, Inc. Web. 10 12 2017.

"Whitney Keyes." n.d. Wikipedia. Web. 11 12 2017.