How Many Titles Are Too Many?

What do the chief marketing officer, chief communications officer, and head of corporate affairs all have in common? At some firms, they’re now the same person.

As firms flatten management to reduce bureaucracy and speed decision-making, more C-suite responsibilities are being absorbed by a single executive. Over the last decade, the number of C-suite executives with more than two titles has increased by a staggering 121%, according to new data. Ten percent of that growth has come in the last two years, as firms have reorganized to keep pace with AI transformation. “A lot of responsibilities are flowing up to executive leadership,” says Torrey Foster, a vice chairman in the Board and CEO Services practice and managing partner for North American consumer markets for Korn Ferry.

Such “title stacking,” as the practice is known, partly reflects a job market that is tough at every level of the corporate ladder—as in, the more titles, the better the résumé. But experts say title stacking is also a form of efficiency. As new mandates like heightened cybersecurity and data privacy have been introduced into the C-suite, some firms have opted to assign them to an existing role rather than creating an entirely new one. At the same time, many firms are giving current leaders new titles like chief innovation officer or chief experience officer. More recently, some organizations have sought to unite talent and AI transformation by combining human resources and technology leadership under one executive.

To be sure, title stacking is commonly employed by CEOs and boards to expose potential successors to different parts of the business and test their leadership capabilities. CFOs, for instance, frequently assume COO responsibilities, and vice versa. But experts say other, more worrisome factors are driving the current trend. While adding more titles and responsibilities has historically been seen as a way to groom a successor, doing so could also signal that the firm lacks a deep bench of executive talent. In those instances, Foster says, title stacking “could be interpreted as a missed opportunity to build a stronger bench by recruiting externally.” It could also result in diminishing returns over time, he says. “Each C-suite role is a full-time job,” he points out, “so boards have to ask how much and how well each additional role given to an executive is being done.”

For his part, David Vied, global sector leader for medical devices and diagnostics, sees the trend as evidence of the lack of faith CEOs have in their executive leadership teams overall. “It’s safer and easier for them to just pile responsibilities onto executives they trust,” he says. Dennis Deans, global human resources business partner at Korn Ferry, agrees, saying the pressure to get hiring right exponentially increases the higher up the corporate ladder you go; in an environment of uncertainty and cost containment, he observes, relying on a proven executive makes more business sense. “Leaders can always split the roles back up in the future,” he says.

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