Datastream

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

Published

1 year ago

December 10, 2021

Aran Ali

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.

CEO	Duration	Company
Warren Buffet	51 years (since1970)	Berkshire Hathaway
Alan B. Miller	42 years (since 1979)	Universal Health Services
Stephen Schwarzman	36 years (since 1985)	Blackstone Group
James Herbert	35 years (since 1986)	First Republic Bank
Richard Fain	32 years (since 1988)	Royal Caribbean Cruises
Leonard Schleifer	32 years (since 1988)	Regeneron
Jensen Huang	28 years (since 1993)	Nvidia
Richard Fairbank	27 years (since 1994)	Capital One
Jamie Dimon	16 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:

CEO	Must Influential CEOs CEO World Magazine	Top 100 CEOs Glassdoor	Top 50 CEOs CEO Today Magazine
Jamie Dimon (JP Morgan)	#6	N/A	#17
Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway)	#20	N/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.

Published

2 weeks ago

May 23, 2023

Marcus Lu

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.

Year	Fed chair	% Great deal or Fair amount
2023	Jerome Powell	36%
2022	Jerome Powell	43%
2021	Jerome Powell	55%
2020	Jerome Powell	58%
2019	Jerome Powell	50%
2018	Jerome Powell	45%
2017	Janet Yellen	45%
2016	Janet Yellen	38%
2015	Janet Yellen	42%
2014	Janet Yellen	37%
2013	Ben Bernanke	42%
2012	Ben Bernanke	39%
2011	Ben Bernanke	41%
2010	Ben Bernanke	44%
2009	Ben Bernanke	49%
2008	Ben Bernanke	47%
2007	Ben Bernanke	50%
2006	Ben Bernanke	41%
2005	Alan Greenspan	56%
2004	Alan Greenspan	61%
2003	Alan Greenspan	65%
2002	Alan Greenspan	69%
2001	Alan Greenspan	74%

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.