(Bloomberg) -- The death of Tootsie Roll Industries Inc.’s 95-year-old chief executive officer is casting a spotlight on the graying ranks of American CEOs and board members over the past decade.
The average age of a CEO in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index increased to 56.9 last year from 55.3 in 2004, according to Spencer Stuart, an executive-recruiting company. Typical CEOs have spent 18.3 years with their companies, compared with 14.8 a decade ago, Spencer Stuart found.
Tootsie Roll’s Melvin Gordon, who died Tuesday after a brief illness, was one of a handful of 80-plus CEOs running publicly held companies. Bruton Smith, the head of Sonic Automotive Inc., is 87. Harold Riley, who manages the insurance- holding company Citizens Inc., is 86. And then there’s corporate America’s most famous octogenarian: Warren Buffett.
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