There is a 55-year age gap between the youngest and oldest person in S&P500 top leadership, but those under 45 hold less than 1% of roles.
When analyzing age distribution across executive and board roles within S&P500 firms, our data shows that leadership is heavily concentrated in the generations of baby boomers and generation X, with boards being significantly older than executive teams.
Key insights:
📊 Over 50% of executives and board members are aged 65 and above.
📊 Boards are, on average almost a decade older than executive teams.
📊 Executives average 57 years, while board members average 66 years.
✅ S&P 500 board members are older than their global peers, with the widest gap seen against emerging markets.
📊 On average, they are 3 years older than those in the FTSE 100 and 6 years older than in MSCI Emerging Markets.
📈 On average, top leadership is more than 14 years older than the general working population, with the gap reaching 20 years in Asia.
➡️ In Human Capital Management there has not been much focus on age diversity and how it is connected to companies’ performance.
In today's rapid changing technology landscape, especially around AI, one could ask the question if a high average age is an advantage or a disadvantage for company performance. We might see different industry trends and could also depend on the average age of the general workforce in the companies.
There are many unanswered questions and we, at Denominator, will help shed more light on age diversity in the coming months.
💫 Stay tuned for the next #DenominatorFacts where we look at how age distribution across executives and boards shifts when gender is taken into account.
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