American business speaks with an accent.

2000: a modest start

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At the turn of the millennium, immigrants held fewer than one in twelve CEO seats across the S&P 1500.

A quarter-century climb

Through the dot-com bust, the financial crisis, and a pandemic, the share of foreign-born CEOs kept grinding upward — even as immigration itself became one of the most contested issues in American politics.

2024: one in six

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By 2024, foreign-born chief executives held – seats — the highest share on record, and still climbing.

A world map of bosses

The 1,021 foreign-born CEOs in the data were born in 79 different countries, on every inhabited continent.

The Anglophone pipeline

Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand together account for – CEOs — sharing language, business culture, and deep corporate ties with the U.S.

The new pipelines

India alone produced – CEOs — Sundar Pichai and Indra Nooyi among them — with growing contingents from Taiwan, Israel, and the Middle East.

The full tally

Hover any country for its CEOs and their companies. The palette is scaled by headcount, from a single CEO to the United Kingdom's –.

A thousand journeys, one destination

Each arc traces CEOs from their birthplace to the United States. Thicker arcs mean more CEOs made that journey.

Careers with stamps in the passport

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of immigrant CEOs worked outside the United States — nearly seven times the rate of their U.S.-born peers (–). The blue circles mark where those foreign postings happened.

But most roads run through America

The bigger surprise: most immigrant CEOs built nearly their whole career inside the United States. They arrived young — often for graduate school — and climbed the same ladders as everyone else.

Three journeys

Follow three real career paths — each hop is a job change across borders, ending at the top of a major American corporation.