Summer is generally the time for long days and longer holidays, but summer 2025 was a season when the inviolable divinity of the business world, the chief executive, looked like a position that was worth exalting less and less. The CEO became more like a chief of excess.
This week, the CEO of Nestlé, Laurent Freixe, resigned after failing to disclose an in progress romantic relationship with a direct subordinate after advice to a business hotline. The main instinct of this situation – as seems to be the reflexive instinct for the CEO class – was to deny, deny, deny. It was until additional advice to the company’s hotline led to a Freixe survey and eviction.
More famous, there was the case of the CEO of astronomer Andy Byron, taken with his chief of the people on a Kiss Cam during a concert in Coldplay. For public relations, the dead of summer are the worst time to be captured In Mylo Xylototo Flagrant With your “work woman” instead of your true. These are slow days for the attention economy, when people have a lot of time to even the worst day of your life. The astronomer’s response was to produce a viral video with Gwyneth Paltrow (the ex-one eccent US Weekly To fix, but did not do anything to reassure the investors and users of the astronomer, not to mention repairing the prospects of the astronomer on the market or as a brand.
Tell me more, tell me more
The CEO Summer of Love may officially started with the cessation of the CEO of Kohl, Ashley Buchanan, in May after discovering that he was heading towards someone with whom he had a relationship. Kohl was previously best known for its Amazon yield converting business model in 20% reduction for nothing you want to buy.
Three makes a trend. (Let’s not even start in the case of the CEO of the Polish paving company which stole this shirt at The Kid at the US Open.) Although the shares of Kohl and Nestlé are colored on the stock market. If nothing else, it is a distraction that consumes a lot of time and money.
Do the CEOs behave more badly or that we simply have more ways to catch them in the act?
It may be a bit of both. Internet and mobile phones have certainly given us the power to collectively shame someone at the speed of data. But, too, we may not have to be so surprised that the modern CEO is so bored that it begins to act as the Director of Rights (and it should be noted that they are all “HES”). Or that when CEOs start to be praised and pay as “rock stars”, it is natural that they are starting to act like them (if they do not swing with their best best work during a rock star concert).
According to data from the Economic Policy Institute, the salary of heads of the management of large companies in the United States increased from 1,085% from 1978 to 2023, with wages with an average of $ 22.21 million. During the same period, workers’ average profits increased by 24%. In 2023, the CEOs won the average worker’s salary 290 times. CEOs do not even need to be good in their work to take advantage of several million versions or stock payments. In the wake of the Wells Fargo false account scandal, where employees had created millions of false accounts to achieve sales objectives, CEO John Stumpf left with just over 160 million dollars in total wages, stock and boarding.
What would Bernie say?
The recent rash of the CEOs who are unleashed is undoubtedly even more stupid than banal fraud, and a disturbing sign that he continues to be a slippery slope of responsibility for C-Suite leadership. Senator Bernie Sanders previously proposed legislation that would increase corporate taxes with exorbitant CEO remuneration, but it was Bernie Sanders and voters last November, he clearly indicated that they really wanted the country to be directed as a company, by the CEO as crazy about all if possible.
It could also have something to do with the fact that only about 10% of the CEO of fortune 500 are women. Of course, a greater diversity in the C Suite C which reflects the greatest population as a whole (something that can be considered “awake” in certain corners) is not so popular this season either.
Or maybe we finally have the role that AI was born in playing. We return to reflection and creation, and we leave the AI to find the best and fastest way to return the value to infinite shareholders of faster times than another guy in a Patagonia fleece vest. CHARD, Calcular, vanguate a thousand and without libido, with only the lie or the occasional hallucination. At least we know that he can keep his hands for himself because she has no hands.
But I would not bet on these results. Expect more executive Tomfooleery and more payments, but perhaps with fewer “darling” offers and many Coldplay concerts.
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