Chief executive officer (CEO):
Agent of the company's board of directors. He carries out part of the management rights granted by the board of directors. He is the head of the company's policy enforcement agency. Under normal circumstances, the chairman of the board concurrently holds the post.
President:
The second CEO of the company, second only to the CEO, is the CEO, so he always has to lay off people. Generally, the CEO concurrently holds the post.
General Manager and Chief Operating Officer (COO):
Assistant CEO, the third person in the company, is responsible for the daily business of the company. It's not administrative, so he doesn't lay off employees.
Chairman:
The chairman of the company directly leads the board of directors of the company and some special committees attached to the board of directors, such as the Executive Committee, the Appointment and Removal Committee, the Remuneration Committee and the Audit Committee. He is the boss of the company.
The general manager and president were renamed CEO. This abbreviation is more concise than its Chinese translation of "CEO" and has a more sacred feeling in the minds of Chinese people, so today's CEO is flying all over the sky. Young people who just graduated from college proudly printed themselves as the CEO of the new company on their business cards. The president of a large enterprise with an annual turnover of tens of billions like Haier also asks others to call him CEO, but most people don't know the essence of this English abbreviation. The titles of chairman, president, CEO and leaders of these three companies are not only word games, but also the basis of enterprise management system, which is not so much the basis of power as the basis of obligation. If power becomes a kind of enjoyment, even the title of power owner becomes a kind of enjoyment, then it is really terrible.
As we all know, chairman's English is chairman, president is president and CEO is CEO. However, the media did not realize the subtle differences between these three titles. The president is often translated into the chairman or CEO, and the CEO is sometimes translated into the president, which is easy to be confused. The position of chairman may be one of the earliest positions determined by the management of modern companies, because it is the highest representative of shareholders' interests. Theoretically, the president and CEO of the company management are appointed by the chairman, and the board of directors can only be convened by the chairman. Under normal circumstances, non-routine shareholders' meetings can only be convened by the chairman (or jointly convened by shareholders, depending on the articles of association). Since the president and CEO are appointed by the chairman, in theory, the chairman can be dismissed at any time. Moreover, the chairman can recall anyone except the members of the board of directors and the board of supervisors at any time, because directors and supervisors are not employees of the company, but owners and arbitrators of the company. So we often see that a CEO who screwed up a lot of things was fired, but still retained the position of director; Even though his shares are small, benevolent shareholders often allow him to stay on the board of directors.
How to set up the position of senior managers in enterprises and how to define their responsibilities and powers are problems that are not recognized by practice and law. Judging from the situation of the United States with relatively perfect corporate governance structure, there is no recognized federal standard. Most states in the United States stipulate that listed companies must have at least three administrative officials: president, secretary of the board of directors and treasurer. In addition, the board of directors of an enterprise may appoint any number of other administrative officials according to the articles of association, including the positions of CEO and COO, but they are not required by law to do so.
In other words, there is no uniform standard for the division of functions and powers of enterprise chief executives, but it varies from enterprise to enterprise. The actual power of two CEOs who also hold the title of CEO may be very different. This is because the legal authority of an enterprise is the board of directors, and the actual power of the chairman varies greatly among different enterprises. From the reality of the United States, under what circumstances CEO and chairman can or cannot represent the enterprise, there is a great difference. In the case of 1973 American Express v. Lopez, the court ruled that "the position of chairman has shown different trends in different enterprises during its evolution. In some enterprises, the post of chairman is concurrently held by the CEO, who may have entrusted the daily affairs to a young manager, but still holds the power; In other enterprises, the chairman is a senior and retired CEO, and actually only plays the role of consulting staff. In other enterprises, the chairman and CEO become a "double-headed system" with roughly equal power. Other enterprises have set up a "CEO office", in which several senior CEOs exercise corporate power.
Therefore, American law has detailed discussions on the "apparent authority" and "actual authority" of the CEO of an enterprise (whether the title is president, CEO or other titles). Generally speaking, the person in charge of an enterprise is considered to be able to make legally binding decisions on behalf of the enterprise when dealing with the general business of the enterprise; For special business, such as the sale of major assets of an enterprise, acquisition and merger of other enterprises, major donation or debt guarantee for other enterprises, etc., it cannot represent the enterprise and needs to be decided by the board of directors.
Therefore, from a practical point of view, whether it is necessary to set up CEO, president and chief operating officer at the same time depends on the scale of the enterprise, business type and the needs of the president replacement plan. The common practice of American enterprises is that the CEO is the top leader, and the president and chief operating officer are the transitional positions to train the top leaders. But not all enterprises must set up these three positions at the same time. The best-managed enterprise in America, General Electric, has only a CEO and no chief operating officer.