Top CEO is aged 59, has a science-based degree: Analysis

[Graphics by Song Ji-yoon]

The average age of chief executive officers of the top 100 companies in South Korea is 59, and a high proportion of them are graduates of the country‘s top university, Seoul National University, with majors in science and engineering.

This data, released on Monday, came from the latest profiles of 128 CEOs of the top 100 companies by corporate revenue that were put together by monthly business magazine The New Management.

According to the magazine’s analysis, the average tenure of these CEOs within their respective groups was 27 years, and the average time to become a CEO was 22 years, down from 55 years in the first survey in 1994.

The proportion of science and engineering majors was 46.8 percent, 4.1 percentage points higher than the proportion of business and social science majors. The proportion of business and social science majors fell significantly from 65.7 percent in the 1994 survey to 42.7 percent in 2024, while the proportion of science and engineering majors increased from 28.3 percent to 46.8 percent over the same period.

A majority of the CEOs, or 51.56 percent, studied at the nation’s top three universities—Seoul National University, Yonsei University, and Korea University. The number of CEOs from these universities was 33, 18 and 15 respectively.