The modern ecosystem is a multidimensional, multicultural, multinational, multi-business experience. The scope of the CEO role has never been wider. A new profile is emerging. 

Multiverse navigator: the CEO must be present at all levels of the firm. In addition to the broadening scope of the role and its rising demands face to external stakeholders, this figurehead must also be consistently present on the internal frontlines. 

Paradox leader: when the CEO moves beyond either/or, to ‘both/and’. Four core paradoxes inhabit today’s ecosystem: health versus wealth, globalization versus localization, reflection versus action, and exploration versus exploration. The CEO’s strategic sensing generates innovative solutions. 

The atypical candidate: the CEO For What’s Next will come from new sources. New routes to destination CEO need opening up, beyond the COO/CFO avenue. The CHRO looks set to join them. Coaching, training, or supplementing with other CXO roles can fill the gaps. But CEOs will need self-awareness and humility to accept support. 

Sensemaker: culture and values are now central CEO concerns. As digitization and hybrid working become the norm, the CEO will need to engage people within the ‘e-cosystem’ and create a great place to work, even as the next generation disregards the ‘job for life’. 

Chief Reputation and Brand Officer: the new CEO is a multi-channel public figure. They must step up to the podium and express the organization’s purpose fluently and authentically, displaying not only mental, but physical fitness. This further confirms the passing of the CEO as a discrete technocrat. 

Democrat: the CEO must genuinely care. Engaging employees has always meant connecting with all levels of seniority. But today’s sharp-eyed employees are alert to the difference between real interest and manufactured camaraderie. 

Purposeful: the CEO must be guided by a deep ‘why’ and ‘what for.’ A true north and value system guide the fittest CEOs through complexity, supporting consistency and authenticity. And purposeful organizations attract purposeful people. 

The classic qualities and leadership skills no longer suffice. Our senior Amrop Partners identify eight characteristics and six tasks for organizations to consider when designing the search strategy for their next CEO. 

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Technical ability is no longer enough; the new CEO is a sensemaker; in a turbulent environment, an organization’s true north is as important as its bottom line. Culture, values and sustainability head the agenda of today’s high-performing C-suite — and CEO. As one Amrop Managing Partner puts it: “It’s all totally connected and that‘s going to be rated, looked at, make the difference.”  

Grit and Gravitas will be defining qualities 

Will today’s CEOs need even more grit and gravitas? An Amrop Board Member confirms. “We do want to get a sense of that. How readily can this person go into a boardroom, into major clients, command an audience, reach out and get the call-backs? Do what needs to be done to be a true leader? And not everybody can. Getting the softer skills right and the mindset around how you engage people differently will lead companies to greater profitability over time. It doesn’t replace technical skills. Your operational mindset, absolutely not. 

“But this is no longer about just being a technical, operations or salesperson. It’s how you package all of this together to get the best out of your people and create the best for your organization and other stakeholders.” 

The CEO will need to maintain the human touch within today’s ‘ecosystem’ 

Expressing and installing the ‘way we do things around here’ have become critical for the CEO. But whilst digitization and hybrid working connect people faster and more often, the depth of connectivity is questionable. As one Amrop Managing Partner puts it: “Digitization and sustainability expectations make it very challenging to define the essence of culture. It is definitely more complicated to shape.” 

Today’s CEO is a public figure 

The imperative to express the organization’s purpose fluently and authentically further seals the extinction of the discrete technocrat. “The CEO role has definitely changed,” says one Amrop Partner. “It has become much more public, representing the values of the company, its ESG agenda and overall purpose… And no matter how good an operator you are, it’s a different skill set.”  

An Amrop Board Member goes even further: “I sometimes refer to the CEO as the Chief Brand Officer or the Chief Reputation Officer. Because this is the person who sets the tone from the top.” 

The CEO has to demonstrate work life balance 

Role modeling has long been a pillar of organizational trustbuilding. A recurrent concern is work life balance. The CEO is being scrutinized by a generation who are skeptical about diktats such as: ‘we’re the winning team, no matter what it takes’. The CEO must embody a culture of wellbeing — reconciling health and wealth. 

“You can’t have a CEO who works 100 hours a week and then says: ‘we have a good work life balance in the rest of the organization’. It doesn’t work like that anymore,” says one Amrop Partner. “You’re also seeing a lot of personal portraits of CEO’s, and them having to be role models.” 

The CEO’s door opens onto the street. And the wind is blowing in 

The Amrop Talent Observatory explores why senior executives join or leave an organization. 90% would be repelled by a serious reputational fallout, no matter how attractive the firm might be in other respects.  

“CEO reputation is make or break. We have seen so many instances of CEO reputation damaging not only organizations but whole industries,” warns one Amrop Managing Partner. “At these levels, demands and transparency in the expectations have increased.” He adds rating agencies to the list of observers. 

Talking the walk: the rise of the CEO-communicator 

Today, many CEOs are media personalities, bearing all the expectations of the Instagram age. “You’re definitely seeing CEOs suddenly having to have an opinion about our purpose and impact in the world as an organization, the long-term goals, being very communicative,” says one Amrop Partner “You need to be media trained, knowing what to say in a storm. You need a blog or podcast, all these communication channels.”  

But even this is not enough. “It’s important what you do in your personal life, that you look fit, all these other things that weren’t at all an issue in the past. Suddenly you become your persona and company.” 

Mastering the macro and the micro 

The CEO must also be available on the internal frontlines. A global Amrop/IMD study explores the leadership dimension of large midcaps. In over eighty interviews with C-suite members, the presence of the CEO at the coalface emerges as a distinctive factor. 

Disaffected employees in a digital workplace will intensify this need if the CEO is to deliver on the culture-building mandate. But it is a balancing act: as well as being on the terrain, the CEO must also rise above it. As this Amrop Managing Partner puts it: “They have to be foresightful, see things from a high level and ground themselves to the battlefield, otherwise they lose touch. And they cannot implement the strategy.”