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Who are the Longest Serving Active CEOs in the S&P 500?

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Longest serving CEOs

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The Briefing

  • The longest serving CEOs highlighted have remained in their position for an average of 33 years
  • The best performing CEOs in 2019 held their jobs for 2x the average duration of S&P 500 CEOs

Who are the Longest Serving Active CEOs in the S&P 500?

Have you ever wondered which chief executive officer has remained at their position the longest? As an investor, you might be interested to know that studies have linked CEO duration with superior stock returns.

One study in particular from the University of Sydney looked at some 19,000 CEOs across the NYSE and NASDAQ from 1992-2016 and concluded:

“A one year increase in CEO tenure, on average, increases future stock returns by 0.029 percentage points, and suggests that longer CEO tenure has robust positive predictive power on cross-sectional stock returns.”

The data in this piece highlights several of the most tenured CEOs in the S&P 500. Warren Buffett is the longest serving leader of the bunch, having maintained his position for over half a century.

CEODurationCompany
Warren Buffet51 years (since1970)Berkshire Hathaway
Alan B. Miller42 years (since 1979)Universal Health Services
Stephen Schwarzman36 years (since 1985)Blackstone Group
James Herbert35 years (since 1986)First Republic Bank
Richard Fain32 years (since 1988)Royal Caribbean Cruises
Leonard Schleifer32 years (since 1988)Regeneron
Jensen Huang28 years (since 1993)Nvidia
Richard Fairbank27 years (since 1994)Capital One
Jamie Dimon16 years (since 2005)JP Morgan

Depending on your investment style, who the CEO is can be an important consideration. Fundamental-oriented investors frequently size up a management team as a key step in evaluating the future prospects of a company.

The Top CEOs

A few of the longest serving CEOs are some of the top rated in the world as well. This table below shows where Warren Buffett, Jamie Dimon, and Jensen Huang appear and rank, in various business magazines and reports:

CEOMust Influential CEOs
CEO World Magazine
Top 100 CEOs
Glassdoor
Top 50 CEOs
CEO Today Magazine
Jamie Dimon (JP Morgan)#6N/A#17
Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway)#20N/A#10
Jensen Huang (Nvidia)#60#31#19

Jensen Huang, in particular, has gained a ton of popularity due to Nvidia’s impressive growth and performance. Their $816 billion market cap means Huang oversees the largest company of this group. In fact, a 23% further increase in their share price would launch Nvidia into the elite trillion dollar club, a fairly small gain when contrasted to their 1,250% share price increase during the last five years.

CEO Duration and Performance

The data on CEO performance is often contingent on how long they last in the role. An HBR report took a look at the performance of 747 S&P 500 CEOs and has some surprising insights. For example, the best performance period for CEOs tends to come in the 2nd decade in years 11-15, otherwise known as “The Golden Years” stage.

Unfortunately, a lot of CEOs don’t make it long enough to enjoy their golden years. PWC found that CEO turnover has become increasingly more rapid relative to the past. Consider that turnover among CEOs at the world’s 2,500 largest companies soared to a record high of 17.5% just a few years ago. Furthermore, median tenures for CEOs have steadily dipped from a 10-year average in 2000, to 8 years in 2016, and closer to 5 in more recent times.

If recent trends and patterns are any indication, long-term serving CEOs like those highlighted above will become even more rare.

Where does this data come from?

Source: Statista, Money Control, PWC, HBR
Notes: CEO duration data does not include specific date or month joined

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Economy

Charted: Public Trust in the Federal Reserve

Public trust in the Federal Reserve chair has hit its lowest point in 20 years. Get the details in this infographic.

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The Briefing

  • Gallup conducts an annual poll to gauge the U.S. public’s trust in the Federal Reserve
  • After rising during the COVID-19 pandemic, public trust has fallen to a 20-year low

 

Charted: Public Trust in the Federal Reserve

Each year, Gallup conducts a survey of American adults on various economic topics, including the country’s central bank, the Federal Reserve.

More specifically, respondents are asked how much confidence they have in the current Fed chairman to do or recommend the right thing for the U.S. economy. We’ve visualized these results from 2001 to 2023 to see how confidence levels have changed over time.

Methodology and Results

The data used in this infographic is also listed in the table below. Percentages reflect the share of respondents that have either a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence.

YearFed chair% Great deal or Fair amount
2023Jerome Powell36%
2022Jerome Powell43%
2021Jerome Powell55%
2020Jerome Powell58%
2019Jerome Powell50%
2018Jerome Powell45%
2017Janet Yellen45%
2016Janet Yellen38%
2015Janet Yellen42%
2014Janet Yellen37%
2013Ben Bernanke42%
2012Ben Bernanke39%
2011Ben Bernanke41%
2010Ben Bernanke44%
2009Ben Bernanke49%
2008Ben Bernanke47%
2007Ben Bernanke50%
2006Ben Bernanke41%
2005Alan Greenspan56%
2004Alan Greenspan61%
2003Alan Greenspan65%
2002Alan Greenspan69%
2001Alan Greenspan74%

Data for 2023 collected April 3-25, with this statement put to respondents: “Please tell me how much confidence you have [in the Fed chair] to recommend the right thing for the economy.”

We can see that trust in the Federal Reserve has fluctuated significantly in recent years.

For example, under Alan Greenspan, trust was initially high due to the relative stability of the economy. The burst of the dotcom bubble—which some attribute to Greenspan’s easy credit policies—resulted in a sharp decline.

On the flip side, public confidence spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic. This was likely due to Jerome Powell’s decisive actions to provide support to the U.S. economy throughout the crisis.

Measures implemented by the Fed include bringing interest rates to near zero, quantitative easing (buying government bonds with newly-printed money), and emergency lending programs to businesses.

Confidence Now on the Decline

After peaking at 58%, those with a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in the Fed chair have tumbled to 36%, the lowest number in 20 years.

This is likely due to Powell’s hard stance on fighting post-pandemic inflation, which has involved raising interest rates at an incredible speed. While these rate hikes may be necessary, they also have many adverse effects:

  • Negative impact on the stock market
  • Increases the burden for those with variable-rate debts
  • Makes mortgages and home buying less affordable

Higher rates have also prompted many U.S. tech companies to shrink their workforces, and have been a factor in the regional banking crisis, including the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

Where does this data come from?

Source: Gallup (2023)

Data Notes: Results are based on telephone interviews conducted April 3-25, 2023, with a random sample of –1,013—adults, ages 18+, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on this sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. See source for details.

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