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     Everyone goes back and fourth trying to decide what they want to be when they grow up.  For me, I had the childhood dream of becoming a vet, then a doctor and finally a super hero.  But when it was time for me to really start to look into what I wanted to be; becoming a CEO of a large company that makes a difference in the world sounded like something right down my alley. Being a CEO and running a company takes effort, time and determination.  A CEO is responsible for running the company and is usually the highest position one can have within a company.  Becoming a CEO doesn't happen overnight; it takes years of hard work and dedication to a company if you want to run it. There are also many pros and many cons to being a CEO. Normally, CEO’s have a four year degree and a masters degree as well (S., 2017).  A CEO I look up to is Elon Musk. He is the inventor and CEO of many different successful companies. My dream career is to someday become a CEO of a large company that has a product or service I believe in and can relate to.

    A CEO’s day-to-day job tasks include but are not limited to planning long term goals, generating strategic plans, creating a vision statement, and creating a vision for the company itself.  While this may sound simple, it’s a lot harder than it appears.  A whole company rides on the back of the CEO to make sure it’s successful and growing.  A strategic plan is a plan operated by top level management like the CEO or board of directors.  This plan basically explains all the long term goals and objectives for a company (Solomon, et al., 2012).  A CEO must also expect chaos and plan for the worst outcomes (Leonard, 2017).  A good CEO understands all aspects of the company.  That means understanding all positions in the company from the lowest to the highest.  Therefore, the biggest responsibility of a CEO is making a company successful by understanding everything that goes on.

    Obtaining a CEO position is not easy.  It takes entering into an entry or low level management job and working your way up to the CEO position.  This can take many years.  I would like to get a job with a large company and learn about the many different departments it takes to create a product or service of a successful company.  I am particularly interested in companies that are innovative in technology or provide something that helps our society. International companies intrigue me and I would love the opportunity to communicate and make business transactions with places and people all over the world.  We are more of a global society than ever before. To become a successful CEO, it would be sensible to understand the global market and have international experience.  I think it’s important to understand the different types of business models and ethics all over the world (Solomon, et al., 2012).

    To earn a CEO position, it takes more than just getting a job in the company.  It takes a prominent education.  Most CEO’s have a bachelors degree in the business field.  Personally, I would like a bachelors degree in accounting or finance with a minor in management.  CEO’s have a lot of responsibilities that correlate with different business fields like knowing how to manage a company but also understand the numbers and what needs to be done to make the company successful.  This is why many CEO’s also get a masters degree or MBA to further their understanding of running a company.  Also, earning a masters degree or MBA will allow you to enter into a middle management level rather than a lower management level with only a bachelors degree. 

    The salary of a CEO varies depending on the company.  The more successful a company, generally the more a CEO will get paid and the less successful a company, the less a CEO will get paid. Whilst most CEO’s get paid in the millions, some get paid around the 600 k mark.  For example, the CEO of Facebook Mark Zukerberg only gets paid around 610,000 thousand dollars a year while the CEO of Walmart C Douglas Mcmillon gets paid around 25,000,000 million dollars a year.  Both these numbers are extremely high, but there is a big difference in pay between the two successful companies (Chamberlain, 2015).

    Elon Musk is a entrepreneur, engineer, inventor, investor and known for SpaceX, PayPal, Tesla Inc., Hyperloop, SolarCity, OpenAI, The Boring Company, Neuralink and Zip2 (Garner, 2015). He is one of the richest and most successful CEO’s of multiple companies.  Musk was born in South Africa but is Canadian-American.  Musk has a long education with multiple degrees from multiple universities.  When he was 17, he was accepted into Queens University in Ontario, Canada. He spent two years there before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania where he acquired a Bachelor of Science degree in physics and a Bachelor of science degree in economics.  When Musk was 24, he moved to California to pursue a PhD in applied physics and material sciences at Stanford University.  Two days into his PhD program, he left to become an entrepreneur in renewable energy, the internet, and outer space (Wikipedia, 2017).  His first company, Zip2 was created in 1995 with his brother Kimbal. Zip2 was a software company that developed online city guides to help newspaper publishers.  This software soon caught the eye of huge newspaper companies like The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune.  Zip2 was later sold to a company called Compaq for 307 million dollars in 1999.  A little while after Zip2 was sold, Musk co-founded X.com which would later purchase the famous PayPal money transfer service. X.com focused its time on PayPal which soon become one of the top online payment systems used by thousands of companies. Musk lost his CEO position in the company due to arguments within the board.  Although, when the board decided to sell PayPal to eBay, he received 165 million dollars of the 1.5 billion dollar sale.  Musk then started to focus on his entrepreneurial interest in space by creating SpaceX which has made history in many situations. Musk was very invested in his SpaceX company, it was more than just a company to him; it was filling a need for the human race. “There's a fundamental difference, if you look into the future, between a humanity that is a space-faring civilization, that's out there exploring the stars … compared with one where we are forever confined to Earth until some eventual extinction event.”- Elon Musk. Later, Musk entered into anther company to help man kind with energy. Musk invested in Tesla, the renowned electric car company.  Musk said "Obviously Tesla is about helping solve the consumption of energy in a sustainable manner, but you need the production of energy in a sustainable manner.”  Showing he isn’t all about the money, he truly wants to help make the world a better place (Dodds, 2016).  Overall, Elon Musk is an inspiration to anyone trying to make a difference in the world and be successful while doing it. 

    Business and technology are constantly growing every day.  CEO’s, investors, entrepreneurs and business owners will always be needed. This is a good thing if you want to become a CEO because there will always be opportunities.  However, it’s hard for a women to become a CEO.  Of the 500 Fortune companies, only 12 of them are run by women (Marks, 2011).  This is called a glass ceiling.  A glass ceiling is defined as a barrier to advancement, especially affecting minorities and women. It is because of this glass ceiling that being a women can be looked at as a con in the business world.  However, I like to look at it as a pro because if I can make it to a CEO position, I can show women everywhere that with effort and determination, you can accomplish anything in the business world.  Another pro to this career is money.  If you work for a decent sized company and become a CEO, you’ll be making a good amount of money.  A pro of being a CEO is that you decide what’s best for the company, you get to put your own ideas into work. Also, you get to decide who works for you and who is best for the company.  A con of being a CEO is that you are responsible for the big decisions, and at some point you will make a mistake that could break your company.  Granted, you may just make a small mistake that doesn't hurt your company, but along the way, you will make mistakes that could have very negative outcomes.  The pro to this con is learning from that mistake that you will hopefully never make again (Herscher, 2015).  Personally, I think the pros outweigh the cons.

    To be completely honest, the journey to become a CEO seems scary and hard.  But that is a big reason why I want to peruse this career path and achieve great things to get there.  CEO’s are smart and extraordinary in the way they think and run things.  I like to think I’m smart and extraordinary too, giving me an edge.  I also know I have determination. I am willing to put in the effort to make it to a CEO position and to carry out that position with the same amount of determination and effort.  Overall, being a CEO of a company that makes a difference is my goal. I have loved researching what it takes to accomplish getting there and what to expect when I finally reach that position.

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Citations

 

Dodds, C. (2016, March 15). Elon Musk: Success Story. Retrieved from http://www.investopedia.com/university/elon-musk-biography/elon-musk-success-story.asp

 

Dr. Andrew Chamberlain | August 25, 2015. "CEO to Worker Pay Ratios: Average CEO Earns 204 Times Median Worker Pay." Glassdoor Economic Research. N.p., 23 Oct. 2015.

 

Elon Musk. (2017, April 11). Retrieved from http://www.biography.com/people/elon-musk-20837159

 

Elon Musk. (2017, April 25). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Education

 

Garner, D. (2015, May 12). 'Elon Musk,' a Biography by Ashlee Vance, Paints a Driven Portrait. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/13/books/elon-musk-a-biography-by-ashlee-vance-paints-a-driven-portrait.html?_r=0

 

Herscher, P. (2015, January 27). Top 5 Reasons You Do, and Don't, Want to be CEO of Your Own Startup. Retrieved from https://www.inc.com/penny-herscher/top-5-reasons-you-do-and-don-t-want-to-be-ceo-of-your-own-startup.htmls

 

Leonard, A. (2017, April 24). To Successfully Grow A Business, You Must 'Expect Chaos'. Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/292749  

 

Marks, Gene. "Why Most Women Will Never Become CEO." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 24 July 2012.

 

S. (n.d.). How to Become a Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Retrieved from http://study.com/articles/How_to_Become_a_Chief_Executive_Officer_CEO.html

 

Solomon, M. R., Poatsy, M. A., & Martin, K. E. (2012). Better business. Boston, MA: Pearson Education.