Are two CEOs better than one? Here are the pros and cons to consider
The following article comes from Entrepreneur, a renowned American publication launched in 1977 specializing in business, small business management, franchising, and entrepreneurship. It offers practical advice on marketing, finance, and technology, as well as success stories.
The article is by Ash Wendt, president and co-founder of Cowen Partners.
With CEO tenures decreasing and industry demands evolving, the co-CEO model is emerging as an attractive leadership structure; however, it’s important to evaluate its advantages and disadvantages.
Key takeaways: The co-CEO model offers benefits such as improved decision-making and greater leadership stability, but it also presents challenges such as potential conflicts and communication problems.
Success in a co-CEO structure depends on clearly defining roles and responsibilities to avoid duplication and ensure smooth operations.
Adapt the co-CEO model to the specific demands of your industry to maximize its effectiveness and support your strategic objectives.
The executive search industry is undergoing an unprecedented transformation
as organizations adapt to constantly evolving needs. One of the most notable changes is the growing interest in shared leadership models, such as co-CEO. Especially given the decreasing average CEO tenure, these models offer several advantages, including improved decision-making through diverse perspectives, a more equitable distribution of workload to prevent burnout, and greater leadership stability.
Now more than ever, it is crucial to evaluate the pros and cons of shared leadership to build resilient management teams in an industry of uncertainty.
Related: Advantages and Disadvantages of the Co-CEO Model
What motivates the transition from a single CEO to a co-CEO model?
Companies adopt co-CEO models for a variety of reasons. It can improve decision-making by incorporating diverse perspectives and distributing the workload, preventing burnout and allowing each CEO to focus effectively on specific areas of the business. It can also help simultaneously drive multiple growth initiatives and increase investor confidence by demonstrating proactive leadership.
For example, Paramount recently adopted a trio of co-CEOs, reflecting a growing trend in the business world. This shift from the traditional single-leadership model stems from a desire for diverse perspectives and a need to distribute leadership responsibilities.
What are the main benefits of having co-CEOs?
In industries with high CEO turnover, co-CEOs can provide greater leadership stability by sharing responsibilities, reducing burnout, and ensuring consistent leadership during transitions. This model can improve organizational performance by leveraging diverse skills and fostering innovation. For example, Salesforce’s co-CEOs Marc Benioff and Keith Block jointly managed operations and innovation, while SAP’s Christian Klein and Jennifer Morgan boosted performance by dividing their areas of focus.
Related: Netflix is one of the few companies with two CEOs. What happens when they disagree?
5 Steps to Overcoming the Challenges of Co-CEO Agreements
Despite its benefits, the co-CEO model also presents challenges, such as the risk of conflicting strategies, overlapping roles, and potential communication problems. To mitigate these risks, it is essential to clearly define roles and responsibilities and establish robust communication protocols. Regular alignment meetings can also help maintain cohesion and prevent conflicts.
For a successful transition to the co-CEO model, start by following the five steps outlined below:
- Clearly Define Roles and Responsibilities
Clearly define the roles and responsibilities of each co-CEO to avoid duplication and ensure smooth operations. This involves defining specific areas of responsibility for each leader, ensuring that each co-CEO has a distinct focus. For example, one co-CEO might concentrate on internal operations and human resources, while the other focuses on external relations and business development. By establishing clear boundaries, organizations can prevent confusion and conflict, facilitating a more efficient leadership structure.
- Leverage Complementary Skills
Utilize the diverse skills of each co-CEO to drive innovation and improve decision-making processes. For example, if one co-CEO has a strong background in technology and innovation, while the other excels in finance and strategic planning, combining these strengths can lead to more comprehensive and innovative solutions to business challenges. Encouraging collaboration between co-CEOs on important decisions can also result in more complete and effective outcomes.
- Focus on Employer Branding
Communicate a compelling value proposition to attract top executive talent, emphasizing the company’s culture, mission, and growth opportunities. This involves highlighting the tangible benefits of working at the company and promoting its values, mission, and vision. By demonstrating a commitment to innovation, diversity, and employee well-being, organizations can position themselves as desirable workplaces for senior executives.
- Use relevant data and analytics
Incorporate data-driven insights to tailor recruitment strategies and effectively target the right candidates. This could involve analyzing past hiring successes, monitoring industry trends, and using predictive analytics to forecast future hiring needs. By basing recruitment strategies on solid data, organizations can improve the accuracy and effectiveness of their talent acquisition efforts.
- Tailor the model to your industry
Every industry has different requirements and challenges, so it’s essential to customize the co-leadership model to fit each specific context. For example, in the fast-paced technology sector, agile decision-making and innovation might be top priorities, while in the financial sector, regulatory compliance and customer focus might be more important. By understanding the specific demands of each industry, organizations can better structure their co-CEO model to support their strategic objectives.
Related: Your definition of leadership is outdated: Here’s how to be a better leader in today’s workplace.
Does the co-CEO model really work?
The success of a co-CEO model depends largely on the compatibility and collaboration among the individuals involved. Clearly defined roles, mutual respect, and a shared strategic vision are essential components. Success stories from companies like Salesforce and SAP demonstrate that, with the right framework, the co-CEO model can be effective, providing stability and leveraging diverse skills to drive innovation.
As the business landscape continues to evolve, shared leadership models could represent the future of executive management, offering a resilient and dynamic approach to navigating the complexities of today’s business world.
Organizations considering this model should carefully weigh the advantages and disadvantages of shared leadership, ensuring they have the necessary structures and protocols in place to maximize its benefits and mitigate its risks. In this way, they can build effective and resilient leadership teams, well-prepared to meet the challenges and capitalize on the opportunities of today’s dynamic business world.
Ash Wendt • Chairman and Co-founder of Cowen Partners
Contributor to Entrepreneur Leadership Network®
Ash Wendt, Chairman and Co-founder of Cowen Partners, has driven the firm’s national success through
Is One CEO Enough? The Rise of the Co-CEO Model
The following contribution comes from the Russell Reynolds website, which describes itself as follows: All organizations—from startups to global corporations, from charities to multilateral agencies—aspire to exceptional leadership. We support them in building that leadership: recruiting the right talent, assessing their leaders, and developing the skills for the future.
Together, we are improving the way the world is led.
The article is authored by Laura Mantoura, a member of the Board and CEO Advisory team at Russell Reynolds Associates. She is based in New York. Emma Combe, who leads the Board Advisory team at Russell Reynolds Associates in the UK and hosts Leadership Lounge, is based in London.
Industry Trends
Succession
CEO Advisory Board
Board of Directors
CEO Succession
Executive Summary
As organizational complexity increases, we explain why some boards of directors are exploring co-CEO leadership structures.
The Challenge of There Can Be More Than One Person in Charge
Several prominent companies have recently challenged one of the most deeply ingrained assumptions in the business world: that there can only be one person in charge.
Around the globe, we are seeing an increase in co-CEO structures, where two leaders share the chief executive role and responsibilities. While the total number of co-CEO appointments remains small, the concentration and timing of these announcements point to a growing willingness among boards to question whether two CEOs might be better than one.
Why Are Some Organizations Rethinking the Single CEO Model?
The role of the CEO has always been singular: one person, a single decision-maker. However, over time, fulfilling this role alone has become exponentially more difficult. CEOs are now expected to lead AI transformation agendas, manage rising stakeholder expectations, and anticipate geopolitical disruption—all while defending margins. Indeed, it’s a superhuman job description.
Our Global Leadership Monitor for the second half of 2025 reflects the increasing complexity of the role, revealing a 10% decline in CEOs’ readiness to manage technological change between the first and second halves of 2025. Only 40% say they are prepared to address the disruption brought about by AI. Our data also reveals that CEOs are increasingly less prepared to manage talent availability, which has fallen from 48% to 37% in the last six months.
As another potential consequence of these increasing demands, our research found that CEO tenure fell to a record low of 7.2 years between the first and third quarters of 2025. In this context, adopting co-leadership could be a way to distribute complexity, share responsibility, and prevent burnout at the senior management level.
Arguments for Co-Leadership
Currently, more and more boards of directors appear to be using the co-CEO model to align leadership structure with strategy, scale, and the pace of change. And the data suggests it can be incredibly effective. A Harvard Business Review analysis of 87 publicly traded companies led by co-CEOs revealed that these companies generated an average annual return for shareholders of 9.5%, compared to 6.9% for their benchmark indices. Nearly 60% outperformed their peers, and the average tenure, at around five years, matched that of CEOs serving alone.
A co-executive leadership structure also allows organizations to combine breadth and depth: one leader can provide global, strategic, and stakeholder-centric guidance, while the other offers deep technical, operational, or product expertise. Together, they can create a more well-rounded leadership profile.
In this way, the model not only divides responsibility but also mitigates continuity risks, providing boards with a mechanism to evolve leadership without impacting performance.
A Structured Transition Mechanism
In some cases, boards use the co-executive leadership model as a structured transition mechanism. For example, when a new or newly appointed CEO works alongside their outgoing predecessor, the model can formalize continuity while allowing the new leader to gain confidence and context. Similarly, founder-led companies often use co-executive leadership arrangements to facilitate the transition from business to professional leadership. Co-CEO structures can also be effective in merger scenarios, where two co-CEOs allow both organizations to feel represented and reduce internal conflicts.
The Risks of Shared Leadership
While shared leadership can bring balance and breadth, it also carries governance risks that boards of directors must anticipate.
Ambiguity in decision-making is one of the biggest risks. When responsibility is shared without clear boundaries, accountability can become diluted. Strategic decisions can stall or be implemented in parallel without coordination. Boards of directors should be alert to early signs that this is happening: delayed decisions, conflicting communications, or a lack of clarity in attributing results; all of these can erode trust throughout the organization.
Tension between co-CEOs is inevitable. Each will likely have different leadership styles and communication methods, but it is critical that they present a united front to their employees and externally. When this tension is not managed effectively, it can lead the organization in very different directions.
What sets successful co-CEOs apart?
Through our work with boards of directors and senior executives, we observe patterns in successful co-CEO partnerships.
Four practices, in particular, distinguish successful co-CEO relationships:
Start with clarity and structure. Effective shared leadership begins with clarity, both in terms of mandate and mindset. Each CEO needs explicitly defined responsibilities, decision-making rights, and spheres of influence. Without clear accountability, even a well-intentioned collaboration can lead to duplication or indecisiveness.
The most successful co-CEO agreements establish which decisions are shared and which are the sole responsibility of a single leader, how to resolve overlapping authority situations, and when and how the board will be involved in joint decisions.
In practice, this often involves dividing oversight along business lines or functional lines; For example, one co-CEO might lead innovation, technology, or growth markets, while the other focuses on operations, performance, and stakeholder management.
Plan for conflict before it arises. Even the strongest alliances between co-CEOs face friction. But we know that tension, when productive, can be a feature, not a flaw, of successful leadership, provided it is managed properly. The difference between constructive debate and damaging conflict lies in how disagreements are identified, discussed, and resolved.
Boards of directors and chairpersons play a critical role in setting the tone from the outset. Defining when issues persist between co-CEOs and when the board should intervene prevents uncertainty from escalating. Equally important is cultivating a common language for feedback, where disagreements are treated as part of the quality of decisions, not as personal challenges to authority.
It is essential that conflict becomes a catalyst for stronger decisions, rather than a source of division. The most successful co-CEOs understand that alignment is not synonymous with uniformity. Their strength lies in the ability to question each other frankly and then present a united front externally.
Designing Succession in the Model
A co-CEO structure is inherently transitional. The question of “what happens next” must be addressed from the beginning. Effective boards of directors will establish clarity on how performance will be evaluated, when the structure will be reviewed, and under what conditions it might evolve into a single-leadership model. When this foresight is lacking, uncertainty can unsettle investors and management teams.
Investing in CEO Mentoring to Strengthen Collaboration Between Co-CEOs
Like any high-performing collaboration, the relationship between co-CEOs requires ongoing investment, trust building, and periodic adjustments.
Boards of directors play a crucial role in ensuring the necessary support is in place. CEO-specific coaching and mentoring can he
