The Shrinking C-Suite

Companies are flattening their org charts—and even the top team is feeling the squeeze

- BY BORIS GROYSBERG AND SARAH ABBOTT

ORGANIZATIONAL FLATTENING MAY WELL BE THE MOST talked-about business trend of the year.

At Amazon, CEO Andy Jassy is focused on increasing the company’s builder ratio (individual contributors/managers) by 15 percent. Dell is also eliminating management roles, moving to a structure where all vice presidents have 15 or more direct reports, and directors and senior managers have 20+.

Outside of technology, companies like Target are downsizing because of “too many layers and overlapping work.” The German life-sciences company Bayer AG has been one of the most aggressive companies on this front. In a recently published Harvard Business School case, we write about CEO Bill Anderson's decision to eliminate 5,500 (out of 7,800) management positions across the company, increasing managers’ span of control to as high as 1:50 in some areas.

While much of the discussion around flattening has focused on middle management roles, the C-suite has not been immune. After years of growth, C-suites are shrinking. According to a SHRM study, between 1990 and 2023, the average size of the C-suite, excluding the CEO, grew by 160 percent. While specialist C-suite roles, such as chief data and chief revenue officer, saw the highest growth rates, nearly all C-suite roles grew over this period. However, over the past few years, this growth trend has been reversing. Per SHRM's data, excluding the CEO, the number of C-suite executives declined by 4.7 percent in 2023 relative to 2022.

C-Suite Trends Among

Leading Global Companies