The Educational Background of American Executives
Project by Polygence alum Jett
Project's result
Research Paper
They started it from zero. Are you ready to level up with us?
Summary
This paper examines the educational backgrounds and personal demographic variables of CEOs in the S&P 500. The CEO is responsible for making crucial decisions, ensuring financial stability, mitigating risks, and leading a company through daily challenges which is why their educational background is an important piece of them. Utilizing a large hand-collected data set on numerous variables regarding the corporations that comprise the S&P 500 and their CEOs, I present data visualizations, summary statistics, and regression analysis to infer patterns amongst the 2024 S&P 500 CEO cohort. I found there was no significant relationship between a specific demographic variable, degree, or attended institution and becoming an S&P 500 CEO, although there are certain ages, demographics, and universities that are represented more heavily than others.
Clay
Polygence mentor
JD/PhD Juris Doctorate and Doctor of Philosophy candidate
Subjects
Quantitative, Social Science, Business, History
Expertise
corporate finance, asset pricing, macroeconomics, financial history, law and economics
Jett
Student
Graduation Year
2025
Project review
“The relationship with your mentor. You really get to connect and get to know them very well. I also was able to research a topic of choice that is not often the case in school.”
About my mentor
“You should really be excited to work with Clay. He was awesome over the course of my sessions and helped me learn certain research/excel tricks that I did not know how to do.”