About the Book
The New CEOs looks at the women and people of color leading Fortune 500 companies, exploring the factors that have helped them achieve success and their impact on the business world and society more broadly. As recently as fifteen years ago, there had only been three women CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and no African Americans. By now there have been more than 100 women, African American, Latino, and Asian-American CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.
Richard L. Zweigenhaft and G. William Domhoff look at these “new CEOs” closely. Weaving compelling interview excerpts with new research, the book traces how these new CEOs came to power, questions whether they differ from white male Fortune 500 CEOs in meaningful ways, asks whether the companies that hired them differ from other companies, and discusses what we can learn about power in America from the emergence of these new CEOs. As Americans continue to debate corporate compensation, glass ceilings, and colorblind relationships, The New CEOs shares information critical to understanding our current situation and looks toward the future in our increasingly globalized world. The paperback edition of The New CEOs features a new Introduction and an updated comprehensive list of new CEOs to date.
Table of Contents:
Preface
Chapter 1: Setting the Stage: The Changing Role of the CEO and the Recent Emergence of Women, African American, Latino and Asian American CEOs
Chapter 2: The Women Fortune 500 CEOs
Chapter 3: The African American Fortune 500 CEOs
Chapter 4: Going Global: Latino and Asian American Fortune 500 CEOs
Chapter 5: Where Do They Fit in the Corporate Elite, and How Do They Compare with Jewish and Gentile Male CEOs?
Chapter 6: Why Now, and What's Next?
Appendix 1: The New CEOs
Appendix 2: Baby-Faced and More: CEOs and Skin Color
Appendix 3: Funding the Corporate-Mediated Pipeline
References
About the Author :
Richard L. Zweigenhaft is Charles A. Dana Professor of Psychology at Guilford College.
G. William Domhoff is Research Professor of Sociology and Psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The authors have written three books together, including Blacks in the White Elite and Diversity in the Power Elite. To learn more about G. William Domhoff's research and publications, please visit his website, Who Rules America?
Review :
According to Zweigenhaft (psychology, Guildford Coll.; Diversity in the Power Elite: How It Happened, Why It Matters) and Domhoff (sociology, Univ. of California; Who Rules America? Challenges to Corporate and Class Dominance), there are 74 women and people of color who have been at the helm of Fortune 500 companies. This book seeks not to analyze why, but rather to explore the individuals themselves-their backgrounds as well as their impact on the companies they lead. The first chapter is devoted to women CEOs, and subsequent chapters individually address each of the ethnicities (further divided by CEO and heritage).The book's latter part is a comparison between traditional CEOs and companies led by the 'new CEOs.' Zweigenhaft and Domhoff clearly and concisely profile the CEOs and companies using a combination of biographical and data-driven research. There are no comparable works available. VERDICT This book succeeds at showing the intersection of culture, politics, ethnicity, and feminism through the lens of business diversity studies. An excellent book for scholars interested in data-driven sociology, psychology, and cultural studies relating to business and for readers in the business world.
Recommended reading.
May be of interest to African-American scholars.
Glass ceilings and unequal compensation continue to be the norm for American businesses, yet as this informative text highlights, women and people of color are growing in number as leaders of Fortune 500 companies and having a significant impact on the future of business.
This book is sobering in how to show us what many African-Americans corporate executives routinely say to each other about their corporations: 'Much has changed, but much has stayed the same.'
Filled with sometimes startling statistics, interviews with this new group of leaders make for compelling reading. These CEOs reveal how they came to power, the insights they gained, and how they differ from male CEOs who historically dominated major companies. They also address ongoing issues, including the current debate over CEO compensation.There is little doubt that this influx of new CEOs is bringing major changes to an increasingly globalized world. The New CEOs should be on the must-read list for leaders and potential leaders in all organizations.
Here, with another year of information to draw upon, we look at the New CEOs in terms of class and gender, using an intersectional analysis to help explain who becomes a New CEO—and who does not.
Richard Zweigenhaft and William Domhoff document the nature of this millennial shift, the paths to power of this new breed of CEOs, and the subsequent stall in the growth of this group in their excellent book, The New CEOs. . . Zweigenhaft and Domhoff have done a meticulous job working with a small data set, comparing the career paths of this group with a larger sample of business leaders, generating hypotheses based on a careful analysis of field and archival data, and constructing a novel sociological model of careers for members of these groups.
In this new book by Richard Zweigenhaft and G. William Domhoff, the authors prove they are the best among social and behavioral scientists writing about diversity and inclusion. The findings they present are accessible, yet challenging, and the inclusion of appendices, tables, and figures are immensely helpful. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in the new global political economy. This book can be used in both undergraduate and graduate course in the liberal arts and especially as a primary text in business schools.
The New CEOs provides very valuable information for those with interests in inequality and diversity. The careful research that Zweigenhaft and Domhoff have provided in their body of work on how the power elite has been changing, from attendees at elite private schools, to membership on key policy boards and on boards of directors of major corporations, and now to appointment as CEO of the nation’s largest corporations, has provided a wealth of information that helps us interpret trends and draw conclusions about social processes. This book is especially noteworthy because it not only provides the descriptive information about who has reached these positions and what their individual stories entail, but it also asks and endeavors to answer whether having diversity at the highest level of corporations makes a difference and whether we can expect for the trends to continue. The book is thorough, drawing from multiple sources of data to provide a profile of the new CEOs, to document the pathways that led them to the top jobs in major companies, and to compare them with white men who have otherwise held these positions. The analysis also compares the performance of these CEOs with those in comparable companies. All around a useful and important contribution to the literature on inequality and diversity.
The New CEOs is a unique and compelling analysis of the factors that promote (or hinder) demographic diversity among the top brass of American industry. The combination of historical, biographical, and empirical accounts create a rich narrative that is both scholarly and engaging. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the evolving profile of the corporate 'chieftain.'
