Average CEO age reached 61 in 2023, study finds

A working paper reports that average CEO age rose by more than 10 years, reaching 61 in 2023. The paper also reports that CEO age at appointment rose from under 48 to 55 years over the same period. The figures come from data on more than 50,000 CEOs drawn from BoardEx, covering the period since 2000.

The findings were published by the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance on 1 May 2026, in a post by Valentin Kecht of the University of Bonn, Alessandro Lizzeri of Princeton University and Farzad Saidi of the University of Bonn, based on their NBER working paper.