C-Level Executives

[Baker, John]

        This was a new one on me, but there are 345,000 Google hits.  It
refers to chief _______ officers - CEOs, CFOs, COOs, CIOs, and so forth.
(These are proliferating to such an extent that some of the
abbreviations are not even unique.  A CIO, for instance, can be either a
chief information officer or a chief investment officer.)  It seems to
have originated as a marketing term.  Surprisingly, "C-level officers"
does not appear to be common.  The earliest example I found was from The
Plain Dealer, 8/5/1997:

        "Senior executives, I have found, use the newsletter for
confirmation. I'm talking about the so-called C - level executives here
- the CEOs, COOs, and CFOs who run their own operations."


John Baker

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