Top 10 Young CEOs Changing the Global Business Scene

Key Takeaways

• Some of today’s top young CEOs started businesses in their teens, and many others rose quickly through the ranks of major companies and reached executive roles years ahead of the typical timeline.
• Young CEOs often stand out for their adaptability, clear decision-making under pressure, willingness to act before conditions are perfect, and ability to connect ideas with real-world timing.
• Reaching the C-suite early often starts with practical education, early leadership experience, small-scale ventures, strong mentorship, a growing network, and staying alert to industry changes.

Undeniably, the title of CEO (Chief Executive Officer) is the top position in the C-suite level of leadership. For many, it represents the peak of ambition, typically earned through years of experience and perseverance. So when someone reaches that level early in life, it naturally turns heads.

A young CEO defies expectations. They don't necessarily skip steps, but they move through them faster. While timing and opportunity can help, reaching the top takes much more than luck. It requires hard work, drive, discipline, and clear vision.

Interestingly, recent research suggests that young CEOs often thrive in leadership roles and are particularly well-suited to lead young companies. A 2023 study found that young CEOs bring energy, adaptability, and a willingness to take risks that align well with the growth needs of young companies. This age-to-age match has been linked to stronger performance outcomes and more ambitious growth trajectories.

While not everyone reaches the C-Suite early on, those who do prove that with relentless effort and smart decisions, climbing to the top at a young age is absolutely possible.

10 of the Youngest CEOs Making Global Impact

There's a reason 30 Under 30 lists get so much attention. They spotlight young leaders who are making an impact and proving that age doesn't have to be a barrier or requirement to influence.

The following are 10 of the youngest CEOs making waves today. For students and aspiring leaders, their stories can be a reminder that dedication and persistence can lead to extraordinary outcomes.

1. Moziah Bridges

Many aspiring entrepreneurs turn to Shark Tank hoping to find the backing to turn their dreams into something real. Moziah Bridges did just that, at just 11 years old. After pitching his handmade bow tie business, M’s Bows, he secured mentorship from Daymond John and went on to build a brand that's now been featured in major retailers and even gifted to former President Barack Obama.

Moziah actually started his business and became a CEO at age 9. His company sells stylish, colorful bow ties and accessories that blend Southern charm with youthful flair. He even launched a foundation that provides summer camp scholarships to help other young people find their passion.

One of his guiding beliefs is simple: “Figure out what you like doing and find out how to make money from it.” It's the kind of leadership mindset that helped him turn a childhood interest into a thriving business.

2. Advait Thakur

Most teens spend their free time playing games online. Advait Thakur spent his time building the tools that power the internet itself. By the age of 12, he had already founded Apex Infosys India, a tech company focused on artificial intelligence, automation, and cloud solutions.

What sets Advait apart is his drive to use technology for good. His company works on digital transformation projects and AI-powered platforms, particularly in the areas of education and healthcare. He also created an app to help children with autism learn more effectively. This is a project that earned him international recognition.

Featured by Forbes, Google India, and Youth Incorporated Magazine, Advait has been widely recognized as a rising figure in tech.

3. Hillary Yip

At just 10 years old, Hillary became the CEO of MinorMynas, a language-learning platform that connects children from around the world to practice languages through real-time conversations. The idea came from her own struggle to learn Mandarin and her realization that kids learn best through actual interaction rather than rote memorization.

Today, MinorMynas reaches users in over 60 countries and continues to promote global communication and cultural exchange. Hillary has been featured by Forbes, BBC, and other international outlets, and she's become a leading voice in youth entrepreneurship and female leadership.

4. Suhas Gopinath

At 14, Suhas Gopinath launched a tech company from a public internet café because he didn't have a computer at home. That company, Globals Inc., would go on to offer web development and IT services to clients around the world.

Suhas taught himself to code by reading books and experimenting online, and when Indian law wouldn't allow him to register a company as a minor, he used a U.S. domain registrar to get started. From small website projects, Globals Inc. expanded into enterprise software, education tech, and government services across more than a dozen countries.

By 17, Suhas was recognized as the world's youngest CEO, and in 2008, he was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. His story is often cited as one of India's early digital entrepreneurship successes. He is proof that, even when you don't have all the perfect resources, determination and curiosity can be enough.

5. Mikaila Ulmer

A lemonade stand is often a child's first experience with entrepreneurship. Mikaila Ulmer managed to turn hers into a nationally distributed brand with a mission to save the bees.

At just 4 years old, Mikaila was stung by two bees in one week. Instead of being scared, she became curious. That curiosity led her to learning about the bees' role in the ecosystem and the threats they face.

Inspired by her great-grandmother's 1940s flaxseed lemonade recipe, Mikaila added honey to the mix and began selling Me & the Bees Lemonade at local events in Austin, Texas. By age 9, she became the company’s CEO.

Her business quickly grew, landing a deal on Shark Tank and expanding into Whole Foods, Kroger, and other major retailers across the U.S. A portion of profits goes toward bee conservation through Mikaila's non-profit, the Healthy Hive Foundation.

Mikaila has been featured by TIME, Forbes, and The Today Show and invited to speak at the White House. In her book "Bee Fearless," she shares lessons on building a business with intention and standing up for causes that matter. What stung at first became the reason she started and the reason she kept going.

6. Ben Kaufman

There's a saying that goes, "Create what you wish existed." It speaks to those who see a gap in the world as an invitation. Ben Kaufman was one of those people.

As a teenager, he got frustrated that he couldn't find the right accessories for his iPod. Instead of waiting for someone else to invent them, he created his own. At just 18 years old, he launched mophie, using his Bar Mitzvah money to start a company that would go on to redefine the market for portable tech accessories.

Kaufman didn't stop there. He later founded Quirky, a platform that turned everyday people's product ideas into real, shelf-ready inventions. The company brought hundreds of ideas to life. Today, Ben leads Camp, a toy store-meets-experience space built around creativity and connection.

7. Ritesh Agarwal

At 19, Ritesh Agarwal was older than some of the other young CEOs we've mentioned so far but still remarkably young to be rethinking an entire industry. After staying in dozens of budget hotels across India, he saw a clear pattern: they were affordable but often unreliable because of unclean rooms, poor service, and a lack of consistency from one place to the next.

Instead of accepting it as the norm, he set out to change it. Ritesh launched OYO Rooms, a startup focused on transforming India's fragmented budget hotel sector. His approach was to partner with small, independently run hotels, upgrade their rooms to meet minimum quality standards, and use technology to manage everything from booking to check-in. In return, OYO would give them visibility on its platform and share in the revenue.

OYO rapidly expanded across India and eventually into international markets, including Southeast Asia, Europe, and the U.S. Ritesh became one of the world's youngest self-made billionaires, and OYO became a global name in tech-enabled hospitality.

8. Evan Spiegel

When Snapchat first launched, the idea of disappearing messages confused a lot of people. However, for millions of users, that was exactly the point. The playful, in-the-moment design offered communication without the pressure to be perfect or permanent.

Evan Spiegel was one of the co-founders of Snapchat while studying at Stanford. At just 22 years old, he became CEO of the app that would soon explode in popularity. As it grew, the company evolved into Snap Inc. in 2016, expanding into hardware and augmented reality. Under Spiegel's leadership, features like Stories and AR filters became industry standards.

In 2017, the company went public, and at just 26 years old, Spiegel became one of the youngest CEOs ever to lead a tech company onto the stock market. The IPO made him a billionaire and established him as a global tech leader.

9. Parag Agrawal

Not every young CEO builds a company from scratch. Some rise through the ranks over time. Parag Agrawal is a perfect example of it. Though he didn't found Twitter, he became one of the youngest CEOs in Big Tech when he was appointed to lead the company at just 37 years old. His age reflects both early achievement and deep experience.

Agrawal first joined Twitter in 2011 as an Ads Engineer and quickly gained a reputation for solving some of the platform's most complex technical challenges. His work in artificial intelligence and large-scale infrastructure led to his promotion to Chief Technology Officer in 2017.

In November 2021, he was named CEO of Twitter, succeeding co-founder Jack Dorsey. He became the first Indian-born person to hold the role and one of the youngest leaders ever chosen to head a global social media company.

Though his time as CEO ended after Twitter's acquisition in 2022, Agrawal's rise remains a powerful example of what it looks like to grow into leadership from within.

10. Mark Zuckerberg

When people think of young CEOs, the one name that always comes up is that of Mark Zuckerberg. He is one of the most famous entrepreneurs in the world, and his story is one of the most well-known in tech history. At just 20 years old, he launched what would become one of the most influential tech companies in the world—Facebook.

Originally created as a way for college students to connect, Facebook quickly outgrew its campus roots. Within months, it expanded to other universities. Within years, it became a global platform. Zuckerberg's role in that growth was central as a co-founder, strategist, and product thinker behind Facebook's expansion.

In 2004, he became CEO of Facebook and guided the company through exponential growth, acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram, and a controversial but important role in the broader tech ecosystem. He took Facebook public in 2012 and later restructured the parent company under a new name: Meta.

While Zuckerberg's leadership has sparked both admiration and criticism, his impact is undeniable. He remains one of the youngest founders to have scaled a startup into a multi-billion-dollar public company.

Traits and Skills That Set Young CEOs Apart

Though the styles of leadership of the young CEOs included in this list vary, one thing remains consistent: they don't mimic someone else's version of leadership. Instead, the focus is on approaching challenges with fresh thinking, adapting to change, and acting decisively. This reflects our innovation philosophy at César Ritz Colleges: Rethink. Refine. Realise.

Like these leaders, our students learn to challenge assumptions, stay alert to emerging trends, sharpen their ideas through strategy and feedback, and put their thinking into practice in real-world contexts. It's a mindset that moves beyond tradition and prepares them to lead and succeed in industries that are constantly evolving.

Many of them began as founders. A study focusing on startups analyzed over 26,000 founders and determined that their personalities could be grouped into six types, based on detailed psychological traits. The types were:

• Fighters, who scored high across emotional intensity traits and often displayed wide emotional ranges and reactivity.
• Operators, who showed the highest levels of conscientiousness, and their profiles reflected a tendency toward structured thinking and process management.
• Accomplishers, who were highly extraverted across all facets and exhibited traits like assertiveness, cheerfulness, achievement-striving, and self-discipline.
• Leaders, who scored highest in openness to artistic interests and emotionality, also ranked high in agreeableness traits such as altruism and sympathy.
• Engineers, who embodied abstract reasoning, curiosity, and conceptual problem-solving.
• Developers, who did not score at the extremes for any single trait but showed a balanced profile.

This range of personality types shows that there isn't one fixed model for leading a company at an early stage. What matters is that they led from different positions within their founding teams, bringing forward the traits that matched their responsibilities. These patterns continue to affect how they operate as CEOs, especially when their roles expand beyond product development or operations. The habits they formed early, like taking responsibility for outcomes and reacting with precision, remain central as they move into more formal leadership positions.

Still, while many young CEOs began as founders, others rose into leadership positions. Some took charge after proving their ability to lead teams under pressure. Others advanced by handling customer relations, business growth, or financial performance from within an existing structure. In these cases, their leadership qualities primarily came from accumulated experience.

The traits observed among founders, such as adaptability and emotional clarity, often appear in these CEOs as well. Many also show:

• Strong decision-making under uncertainty
• Confidence in managing and delegating across departments
• Clear, direct communication with team members and stakeholders
• Consistency in how they represent the company across settings
• Awareness of how to tailor their message to different audiences
• Discipline in meeting goals and following through on plans
• Sound judgment when responding to feedback or public pressure

This kind of leadership development is a core focus at César Ritz Colleges. With guidance from industry professionals, our students learn to assess outcomes, adapt their approach, and grow through direct feedback. The result is a CEO mindset rooted in reflection, responsibility, and real-world readiness.

How to Become a CEO at a Young Age

Becoming a CEO early in life is all about acting on insight, building connections, and treating every project as a chance to lead. The path varies for different people, but those who reach executive roles early tend to share a few core patterns: they have ambition, they start young, they act with focus, and they remain clear about where they're heading, even when the conditions are unpredictable.

The first thing to keep in mind is to start preparing early on, while still in school. You learn a lot by taking on different leadership positions, like launching a product with limited resources or leading an event with financial risk. Early leadership doesn't necessarily need a title. Action and accountability are the focus.

César Ritz Colleges supports this kind of learning from day one. We believe that leadership isn't a title, it's a mindset. So, our students enter a setting where theory is always paired with application. Moreover, through the International Recruitment Forum, they meet professionals who invest, hire, and mentor. These encounters often shift a student's trajectory in a lasting way.

In fact, mentorship is one of the strongest predictors of long-term success. 75% of executives attribute their progress to mentors, and recent studies show that those with mentors report much higher satisfaction in their work lives.

The importance of networking and mentorship lies in the access and guidance provided. At César Ritz Colleges, mentorship is built into the educational model and reinforced through regular industry engagement. For aspiring founders, these connections often influence critical turning points, like securing funding or navigating the challenges of scaling a business.

Another important step in becoming a young CEO is having a clear view of a gap in the market and responding to problems others have accepted, or they offer alternatives in spaces where options feel outdated. This problem-solving mindset often starts small: identifying inefficiencies or rethinking how a familiar service is delivered. With repetition, that kind of thinking scales into strategy.

For those aiming to lead early, the goal is clarity and seeing where value can be created and building the discipline to carry it forward. Education plays a part, but so do timing, relationships, and the habit of committing before conditions feel perfect. It's a pattern seen in the career development of many César Ritz Colleges graduates.

César Ritz alumnus, Alexander Mackh, launched a wine import business shortly after completing his studies. He later expanded into product design by building a glassware brand recognized for both quality and presentation. His inclusion in "Forbes 30 Under 30" followed a series of calculated moves, each rooted in the kind of strategic thinking and operational awareness he developed at our school.

The Rise of a New Generation of CEOs

Young CEOs show what's possible. Their presence in boardrooms and headlines is a reminder that leadership doesn't depend on age. With the right mindset and preparation, progress doesn't have to wait.

However, success, early or not, doesn't come from chance. It's built through preparation: learning how to guide teams, make sound decisions under pressure, and adapt when the situation shifts. At César Ritz Colleges, this kind of preparation is at the core of our programs. The Master of Science in Leadership, in particular, supports those ready to take on real responsibility and pursue executive roles.

Keep in mind that starting early helps you build momentum, but starting later doesn't mean you've missed your chance. Leadership starts when you step into it. You don't need permission. You don't need the "right" age. At César Ritz Colleges, you learn to lead and lead to succeed. That mindset will help carry you forward.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the best leadership books for a young first-time startup CEO?

Some widely recommended leadership and entrepreneur books include "Startup CEO" by Matt Blumberg for operational insight, "The Hard Thing About Hard Things" by Ben Horowitz for dealing with uncertainty, "The Great CEO Within" by Alex MacCaw, Matt Mochary, and Misha Talavera for its hands-on strategies, and "Founder's Mentality" by Chris Zook and James Allen for understanding growth challenges from the inside.

When does a founder become a CEO?

A founder typically becomes CEO when they take on responsibility for guiding the company's direction and overseeing its growth, often from the early stages of the business.

What are the best tips for first-time startup CEOs?

Clarify your mission, build systems that don't depend on you, invest in hiring and team alignment, stay adaptable as you grow, and seek honest feedback from people who understand your space.

How does one start young to become a CEO one day?

Start by stepping into leadership roles early, launching small ventures or projects, learning from mentors, building real-world business skills, and studying how effective CEOs think and make decisions.