What portion of the Fortune 500 CEO's were in sales at one point during their career?

Question

It has been frequently stated that the CEO's (Top Executive of any company) have spent a portion of their career in Sales. I am trying to find actual statistics to support this idea. Can anybody direct me to this type of research? It doesn't just have to be Fortune 500 companies. Thanks!

Answer 1

I'm not certain you will be able to find this, without doing research on each CEO. But, from my experience, many of them have finance degrees.