# Is there a difference between CEO and President of a corporation?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-difference-between-ceo-and-president-of-a-corporation/245360>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 16, 2004, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-difference-between-ceo-and-president-of-a-corporation/245360 "2004-05-16T02:07:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\
**Post date:** [May 16, 2004, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-difference-between-ceo-and-president-of-a-corporation/245360/1 "2004-05-16T02:07:04Z")

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What about Chairman of the Board? Or all they just different titles for the same thing.

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**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\
**Post date:** [May 16, 2004, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-difference-between-ceo-and-president-of-a-corporation/245360/2 "2004-05-16T02:11:35Z")

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It’s been years since my Business classes, but IIRC President and CEO are pretty much interchangable. This is the guy responsible for the day-to-day running of the company. Chairman of the Board, however, usually doesn’t do that. The Board of Directors set policy, that the CEO than carries out.

CEO = tactical

CoB = strategic

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**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\
**Post date:** [May 16, 2004, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-difference-between-ceo-and-president-of-a-corporation/245360/3 "2004-05-16T02:31:39Z")

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> [@Blalron](#):
>
> What about Chairman of the Board? Or all they just different titles for the same thing.

A company can have three different people for CEO, President, and chairman of the board. Occasionally the same person is all three. I would disagree that COB is strategic and CEO is tactical. The board of directors generally provides oversight in the interests of the stockholders, although many do so badly lately, since BOD positions have become in large part paid-to-look-the-other-way positions.

Anyway, the CEO is most definitely a strategic job. It’s hard to say, though, at what level in the hierarchy the job changes from strategic to tactical. The president could be a COO, or just the President. I am not sure how long these CxO titles have been in vogue; I think there was a dilution of their impact after CIO, CTO came into play and then some companies, especially tech startups, invented silly ones like Chief Party Officer.