You are not a CEO

Wow, Jobs had hair!

I write this as I consider another post ‘The Market for Lemons’ coming soon. I have come to realise that, in a company circa 160,000 strong like my employer’s, the need for a single message from a single leader is of utmost importance. Even if that leader is the most hated figure this side of the Afgan border, my reason being that a mob united by hatred is still a group with a purpose and direction.

Anyway while musing on this I happened to search for the term CEO on my company directory and, loe behold, circa 35 employees call themselves a Cheif Executive Officer. So, the question begs to be asked, what constitutes a CEO. A combination of OED, Princeton and Wikipedia states that

‘A CEO is the highest ranking corporate officer in charge of total management of a corporation, company agency; reporting to a board of directors or trustees’

Now I’m no business guru but, for a publicly licensed company this board of directors should be a board of representitives for the shareholders reposnsible for maintaining shareholder value by keeping the CEO on the straight and narrow (or in the case of companies like Enron, whatever’s profitable). It also of note that President also has a similar meaning in the US (though I’m not 100% on it) however about 50 or so come up on my company directory *sigh*

This, in my humble opinion, is of absolutely no concern to my colleagues who call themselves such things as ‘CEO of Technology X’ which, I’m quite sure, means sweet FA to anyone reporting to him/her and merely resolves to a) make the holder of such a title seem a little arrogant, and b) increase the arrogance of the holder yet more dizzying heights.

So, for this reason, I stand proud with my long but informative job title and will point in the direction of this post anyone who mocks it.