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By Andy McCue, 17 July 2003 08:51

NEWS Not a single CEO in the UK FTSE 100 index of leading blue chip companies has made it from an IT background, according to a new study. 'CEOs of the Top 100 UK Companies' was undertaken by Dr Elisabeth Marx of head-hunting firm Hanover Fox International, and the statistics make depressing reading for IT high-fliers. That picture is not likely to change any time soon, but high-profile positions and a solid financial and business background are vital for any CIO aiming for the top job, said Marx. She said the background of today's business leaders is overwhelmingly accountancy and finance and that it is leading to a lack of diversity at CEO level. She told silicon.com: "Are we too rigid in appointing people? IT CEOs may happen in the future but it will come about slowly." Instead, ambitious IT executives need to take control of their career very early on and be proactive in managing it to give themselves a chance of reaching the top. Marx said: "It is important to get very good financial grounding early on in their career and they need to be quite careful in choosing relatively high-profile positions." This is especially important with a trend emerging for new young 'super CEOs', according to the study. It found there are double the number of people under the age of 45 at the head of UK boards compared to figures from 1996. Internal promotion is still also the favoured route for companies to appoint a CEO, with over three-quarters getting the top job this way. Today's CEOs are also more likely to have a university background, with a third having degrees compared to one in ten in 1996. For female senior IT executives aiming for the top the picture is even bleaker. At the time of the study at the end of 2002 just one woman, Marjorie Scardino of Pearson, was a CEO.