The Rise of Co-CEOs: Sharing the Burden of Being on Top

The growing list of companies that employ co-CEOs reads like a who’s who of corporate America — Comcast, KKR, Lennar, Oracle, Netflix, Spotify, and Warby Parker, to name just a few.

Still, co-CEOs are members of an exclusive club. Of the 2,200 companies that were listed in the S&P Global 1200 and the Russell 1000 Index from 1996 to 2020, fewer than 100 were led by co-CEOs. As of September, co-CEO arrangements were reported at just 1.2% of Russell 3000 Index companies.

Christine Greybe, president of leadership consulting at executive coaching and leadership consulting firm DHR Global, said that recent announcements of co-CEOs at Comcast, Oracle, and Spotify might make it seem like “everyone is making the shift” to a co-CEO model. However, the co-CEO approach remains relatively new, she said.

“The reality is that the number of co-CEOs is minuscule,” Greybe said.

Still, more organizations are experimenting with or discussing co-CEO structures, she noted, “given the complexity of the current business environment and the demands on modern-day leadership.”

David Astorino, senior partner at leadership consulting firm RHR International, said a co-CEO structure combines an executive’s pursuit of “individual status” with their drive to collaborate.

“The co-CEO structure is where these two drives meet head-on, forcing power-sharing at the very top,” Astorino said. “Its success really boils down to two things: the personalities of the leaders involved and whether the company has set up clear rules of engagement to help them succeed.”

Case Study 1: Co-CEOs at Gensler 

One relatively new co-CEO pairing is Elizabeth Brink and Jordan Goldstein. The two executives have led architecture and design firm Gensler as co-CEOs since the summer of 2024.

Brink said her co-CEO partnership with Goldstein “means never leading in isolation.”

“Jordan and I each bring different perspectives and experiences, and together, we’re able to look at challenges from multiple angles. That balance keeps us sharper and helps us move faster,” Brink said. “Most importantly, we’ve built deep trust. We’re in constant dialogue, and that ongoing connection makes our partnership seamless.”

Goldstein said that he and Brink chat every day — even on weekends — regardless of the time zone they’re in. Much of the time, Goldstein works on Eastern Time from Gensler’s office in Washington, D.C., and Brink works on Pacific Time from the firm’s office in Los Angeles.

The three-hour time difference is a plus, not a minus, according to Goldstein, since he’s a “night owl” and she’s an “early bird.”

Since taking on the co-CEO titles, Brink said she and Goldstein have split up responsibilities, “but nothing is siloed.”

“It’s less about division and more about shared accountability,” Brink said.

The division of labor results in each co-CEO assuming leadership of a certain region or initiative, Goldstein said. However, Goldstein said that he and Brink are engaged in and informed about all regions and initiatives.

“It’s not about splitting the work down the middle,” he said. “It’s about making sure the firm gets the full value of two leaders working in sync.”

Brink said the co-CEO arrangement at Gensler aligns with the firm’s collaborative nature.

“Two leaders with complementary strengths can advance innovation quicker, push creativity further, and stay better connected to our clients, our people, and our markets,” she said.

Case Study 2: Co-CEOs at Permiso Security 

Jason Martin and Paul Nguyen, co-founders and co-CEOs of cybersecurity startup Permiso Security, believe it makes sense for an organization to install co-CEOs as long as the executives trust each other, check their egos, and put faith in the other co-CEO’s decision-making.  

However, Martin said that he wouldn’t recommend a co-CEO arrangement for first-time company founders. They typically lack emotional maturity and work history, according to Martin. In this scenario, a co-CEO arrangement could be fatal for a startup, he said.

This arrangement can also make accountability murky, slow down decision-making, and “create situations where employees and the board don’t know who’s driving the ship,” Martin said.

However, when done correctly, a co-CEO structure can be a “superpower,” helping a company navigate business complexities and run parallel strategic initiatives, Martin said.  For example, while Martin focuses on product and engineering matters, Nguyen concentrates on customer success and go-to-market strategies.

Aside from staying in their own “lanes” in company operations, Martin and Nguyen benefit from being in different time zones to more easily cover early or late calls and attend events in far-apart regions. 

How Well Do Co-CEOs Perform?

While co-CEO structures are unusual, successful ones are “even more unique,” according to an article published in the 2024 edition of the American Psychological Association’s Psychology of Leaders and Leadership journal.

A Harvard Business Review article written by three researchers examined the performance of 87 public companies whose leaders were co-CEOs. They discovered that when co-CEOs were at the helm, their companies produced an average annual shareholder return of 9.5%, above the 6.9% average for each company’s relevant stock index. Almost 60% of the companies led by co-CEOs outperformed their peers, the researchers found.

Why Should an Organization Consider Co-CEOs?

RHR’s Astorino noted that co-CEOs are still rare because the arrangement requires a belief that sharing power trumps the traditional top-down model of a single CEO.

According to Astorino, reasons to adopt a co-CEO structure include the ability to:

• Split internal and external focuses. Having two leaders gives organizations the ability to “divide and conquer.” For example, one co-CEO might manage outward-facing aspects such as vision and strategy, while the other might tackle in-house operations.

• Handle different products or regions. “If a company has a very complex product mix or is spread out geographically, co-CEOs can provide clear leadership for distinct areas,” Astorino said.

• Retain CEOs from two recently merged companies. Instead of losing a leader in a merger, a co-CEO partnership allows both leaders to maintain their skills and company knowledge.

• Keep top-tier talent. “Sometimes a company has two amazing executives and doesn’t want to lose either one, so it creates co-CEO roles to retain them,” Astorino said.

When an organization embraces a co-CEO configuration, a high level of trust and a low level of ego are keys to success, according to Astorino.

“The best examples often involve people who have a long, 
positive working history, like at Spotify, where the co-CEOs had worked together for over 15 years,” he said.
 

John Egan is a freelance writer based in Austin, Texas.