In our fourth annual review of leadership in the Silicon Valley, the fundamental shift in the landscape of the Silicon Valley 150 (SV150) is the rapid disappearance of many established public companies, with so few new Silicon Valley IPOs taking their place. Why have so many boards of directors and CEOs opted to sell in 2016-17? And what is happening to tech leadership in the face of all this M&A activity?
In this C-Suite edition of our annual SV150 report, we dip into the ranks of the senior functional executives running the top public technology companies in the Silicon Valley, to better understand the people in these important roles. One thing is clear: Chief Executive Officers have more direct reports than ever and SV150 functional specialists now outnumber the generalist heads of business units by more than 3 to 1.
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"The fundamental shift in the landscape of he Silicon Valley 150 is the rapid disappearance of many established public companies, with so few new Silicon Valley IPOs taking their place."

We learned a lot about how the SV150 thinks about leadership from building the dataset for this report. From our research, we calculate there is an average of 11.5 leaders per SV150 company. While all companies had CEOs and CFOs in place, there was considerable variation in what other senior roles were designated. For example, we found Chief Operating Officers at only 34% of SV150 companies, and they were most likely to be found at the largest public companies (42% worked at a Top 50 ranked company). Likewise, General Managers/Presidents of business units were most likely to be found at Top 50 ranked companies (55% of them worked at a Top 50 ranked company).
Our research focuses on the functional managers in the leadership team. The average number of functional managers reporting directly to the CEO has more than doubled since the 1980s, and three-quarters of the increase has been attributed to functional managers. Our report profiles the functional managers of the SV150 running finance, engineering, sales, marketing and HR — all roles of increasing importance in the management team, and with ever-evolving responsibilities.
To request a copy of this report, please email [email protected]lonerganpartners.com.
“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”
Prior Editions of Who Runs Silicon Valley

2016 CEO Power Edition
This in-depth profile of the CEOs leading the top 150 public companies in technology in the Silicon Valley focuses on sources of corporate power.
Highlights of the report include:
- CEO power rankings, including a definition of the four dimensions of CEO power
- CEO compensation & voting power, with a comparison of Silicon Valley to the S&P 500
- CEO leadership & the latest statistics on tenure, gender and founder status
- Public company trends, with a focus on industry sector changes
To request a copy of this report, please email [email protected]

2015 Board of Directors Edition
In this report we profile the CEOs running the top public companies in technology in the Bay Area.
In this report we answer the following questions and more:
- How many directors seats are in the SV150 and how many people fill them?
- What educational degrees do they hold and from what schools?
- How many women occupy board seats in the SV150, and what roles do they play?
- What is the average tenure of a SV150 board director?
- How many overlapping seats are there in the SV150?
- How much compensation do these directors make?
- How do SV150 boards vary by size and age of company?
To request a copy of this report, please email [email protected]lonerganpartners.com.

2014 CEO Edition
This edition of “Who Runs Silicon Valley” is an in-depth profile of the CEOs running the top public companies in technology in the Bay Area.
In this report we answer the following questions and more:
- What are the demographics of Silicon Valley public company CEOs?
- What educational degrees do they hold and from what schools?
- How much money do these CEOs make?
- What is the average tenure of a Silicon Valley public company CEO?
- How many of these CEOs are also Chairman of the Board?
To request a copy of this report, please email [email protected]lonerganpartners.com.