Nobody puts baby (boomers) in a corner, or keeps them out of the executive suite—but Generation X is giving them a run for their money. The current brat pack of Fortune 500 CEOs is now made up mostly of people aged 43 to 58, also known as the “sandwich generation.” Back in the 1990s, they were called the slacker generation: That’s right, Gen X. To paraphrase a generation-defining movie for this cohort, reality no longer bites for the leaders of the country’s biggest firms.
Known for their early efforts to establish a better work-life balance, Gen X might finally be shaking things up from the very top. There are currently 267 Fortune 500 CEOs who could have been held in detention as the Breakfast Club. It’s not all that shocking, given that the average age of a Fortune 500 CEO sits solidly in this range: aged 57.7. They have a lot in common with Gen X icon Keanu Reeves, who is just a tad older at age 58. Sorting through all 505 CEOs from this year’s list, Fortune cross-referenced their ages with the generational definitions used by both S&P Global and Pew Research Center. As Keanu might say, once or twice, or ten times, “Whoa.”
