If entry-level jobs disappear, who becomes a CEO?
The path to the corner office has long followed a familiar pattern. Start at the bottom, learn the business from within, and advance step by step. That model is now changing, and artificial intelligence is the primary reason.
AI is rapidly absorbing the routine work that once defined early career roles. Data entry, basic financial analysis, customer support triage, and even junior coding are increasingly automated.
The result is a shrinking base of entry-level positions and rising expectations for those who remain. Graduates are being asked to demonstrate experience that they have fewer opportunities to acquire.
This is not only a labor market shift. It is a leadership shift.
Entry-level roles did more than fill operational needs. They functioned as an apprenticeship in how organizations actually work. They taught how decisions move through systems, where incentives distort behavior, how customers respond, and where risk accumulates. As those roles recede, so does the informal training ground that once produced experienced executives.
As a result, future CEOs will be shaped more deliberately than their predecessors. In conversations with several executive recruiters and HR bosses, they noted that companies are moving away from the assumption that leadership will emerge naturally through long tenure. Instead, they are beginning to identify potential earlier and develop it more intentionally. This takes the form of accelerated development tracks that emphasize strategic thinking, judgment under uncertainty, ethical reasoning, and the ability to manage human and machine systems together.
Future leaders will also begin their careers differently. Rather than spending years executing routine tasks, they will enter closer to the decision layer of the firm. They will supervise automated processes, interpret outputs, and make trade-offs about risk, capital, and values earlier than previous generations. Training will rely less on gradual exposure and more on structured rotations, scenario planning, and simulated decision environments.
At the same time, companies are widening the pool from which leaders are drawn. Entrepreneurs who have managed risk and capital firsthand, technical specialists who shape digital infrastructure, operators from sectors that are still developing frontline leadership, military veterans trained in high-consequence decision-making, and career switchers with transferable strategic skills are all becoming more common sources of executive talent.
None of this means companies are losing the ability to develop leaders. It does mean they are losing the luxury of doing so passively.
The future CEO is unlikely to follow a single standardized path. Some will rise internally through redesigned development models, while others will arrive from outside with experience formed elsewhere. But what’s clear is that the role of an organization will shift from producing leaders through long service to cultivating and integrating leadership capacity drawn from a broader and more varied set of experiences.
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Ruth Umoh
ruth.umoh@fortune.com
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com