What CEO Means: Chief Executive Officer, AD and DG Compared
CEO stands for Chief Executive Officer: the person who runs the company and answers to the board for the result. In Italy the closest legal equivalent is the amministratore delegato, not the direttore generale, and the difference matters the day something goes wrong.
The short answer
CEO is the English title for the person who runs a company day to day and answers to the board for the outcome. It is a functional title, not a legal one: in most jurisdictions the authority behind it comes from a board mandate rather than from the words themselves.
How the titles map
Why Italian companies use CEO anyway
Most Italian companies with international investors, exports, or foreign parents put CEO on the business card and amministratore delegato in the register. That is fine, provided the person actually holds the delega. A CEO on the card without a board delega has responsibility without authority, which is where most governance problems start.
What a CEO is actually accountable for
- Strategy and the capital allocation behind it
- The management team, including hiring and removing it
- The P&L and the cash position
- What the board and the shareholders are told, and when
When the title is temporary
A CEO seat can be filled on an interim basis while a permanent search runs. The mandate is the same, the horizon is not: an interim CEO is appointed to stabilise, decide, and hand over, usually within six to twelve months.
https://niklaslindahl.com/guides/what-ceo-means