ESG: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review

2 DOES YOUR COMPANY NEED A CHIEF ESG OFFICER?

by Robert Langan and Markus Menz

There’s a new title in the C-suite: chief ESG officer. While top executives with “ESG” in their title are new and not yet widespread, this role is an opportunity that companies may consider as they face increasing pressure to address environmental, social, and governance issues; companies like C.H. Robinson, Royal Caribbean, and Verizon have recently appointed chief ESG officers. But what does a chief ESG officer do? And when should a company have one?

To find out, we analyzed senior executives from more than 1,400 U.S. public companies in 2020 and 2021. Using insights from this analysis and from studying other top executives, we developed three questions that ...