Almost fifth of CEOs' careers down to 'lucky break'

The route to the top for nearly a fifth of CEOs is luck according to a new study.

The research from PA Consulting shows that 69% of CEOs attribute their career development to the actions they took and the decisions they made.

However, 31% credit external forces. 17% of respondents described being given a ‘lucky break’, while a further seven per cent described someone taking a risk on them.

The study also explores the experiences that CEOs felt were most critical to their development. Stretching challenges were the most popular (48%), followed by overseas experience (41%), breadth of experience (36%) and on-the-job learning (21%).

Over two fifths (41%) of CEOs mentioned role models as key influencers in their career development of which 34% mentioned one person and seven per cent mentioned two people.