Co-CEOs are back in Corporate America — and Wall Street isn’t sure what to make of it
Dual leadership has boosted shareholder returns historically, though evidence on operations is thin.
Two heads are better than one, right? That’s the thinking of a growing number of corporate boards that have turned to the co-CEO model, with Spotify the latest to join the trend, yesterday appointing Alex Norström and Gustav Söderström as co-chiefs, effective January 2026. That comes hot on the heels of Comcast and Oracle (which sort of has four leaders, rather than two), as both have also announced joint leadership at the top in recent days.
So, what does Wall Street think about having two decision-makers instead of one? It’s hard to reach any concrete conclusions from one day, but if recent market action is anything to go by, the jury’s still out.
Intuitively, the more crowded the helm, the more murky the day-to-day chain of command might be, especially in turbulent times. During the pandemic, SAP ditched its co-CEO structure in just six months for “strong, unambiguous steering.” Back in 2016, Chipotle also reverted to sole leadership as E. coli-driven food safety concerns squeezed its bottom line.
It’s no surprise, therefore, that only a handful of companies are adopting such a structure. A 2022 Harvard Business Review study found that less than 4% of 2,200 firms listed in the S&P 1200 and the Russell 1000 from 1996 to 2020 were led by co-CEOs — though those 86 firms posted an average annual shareholder return of 9.5%, higher than the 6.9% for each firm’s relevant index, with nearly 60% outperforming single-CEO firms.
Of course, having two CEOs doesn’t necessarily guarantee the company runs better. A separate 2011 study found that while co-CEO firms often trade at higher valuations than solo-led peers, there was no clear evidence of stronger operating performance — suggesting, perhaps, that two heads were better at communicating the equity story to Wall Street than one.
So if the evidence is murky, why do it? As noted by Michael Watkins, professor of leadership and organizational change at IMD Business School, modern CEO jobs often exceed “individual bandwidth.” At Netflix, its co-CEOs each oversee different sides of the business — Ted Sarandos on content and marketing, Greg Peters on product and tech — while Oracle’s new duo splits roles between AI infrastructure from industry applications.
