Ivy League not required: Fortune’s Most Powerful Rising Executives break the mold that success requires a top-ranked education
For aspiring business leaders, hard work pays off—sometimes even in the form of a fast-track to the c-suite.
The leaders likely to make it there are on Fortune’s Most Powerful Rising Executives list, a collection of 25 up-and-coming stars at Fortune 500 companies. But how they made it to senior roles at companies like Walmart, Amazon, and Apple is no easy story to tell, especially from an educational perspective.
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While some took more traditional routes studying business and economics in school and later obtaining an MBA, others carved less popular routes, such as studying subjects like physics, political science, or pharmacology.
They do, however, have at least one thing in common: they all value education enough to get a bachelor’s degree from universities of all sizes around the globe. With the exception of the University of Michigan—where Ram Krishnan of PepsiCo and Frank Bracken of Foot Locker studied, all the Most Powerful Rising Executives attended unique schools as undergraduates.
Fortune Most Powerful Rising Executives’ education by the numbers:
- 100% have a bachelor’s degree
- 60% attended graduate school
- 40% have an MBA
- 16% attended an Ivy League
- 40% studied engineering or computer science
The leaders also did not largely attend schools that are generally considered the best of the best; only four of the leaders received a degree from an Ivy League school.
The Most Powerful Rising Executives are distinct from the leaders on Fortune’s Future 50 list, a collection of companies that are best suited for long-term growth. Some CEOs of the companies did not obtain a degree at all, saying it was a waste of time. On the flip side, others sought out PhDs to be leaders in the fields.
On both lists, one thing that was in common was the number of business leaders with degrees in subjects like computer science and engineering. Both also have a significant amount of individuals who received a degree outside of the U.S.
Word cloud of the undergraduate majors of Fortune’s Most Powerful Rising Executives.
However, the education of the Most Powerful Rising Executives is largely similar to Fortune 1000 CEOs, at least in terms of MBAs. About 40% of Fortune 1000 CEOs have a graduate business degree.
