America's Top Black CEOs

The vision and actions of a CEO permeate every aspect of an organization. Financials, customer service, and company culture reflect the goals and strategies of those in leadership positions. Even as many companies have pulled back or reworked diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, representation in the C-suite remains a closely watched measure of corporate opportunity.

In a world where only a handful of companies have been led by people of color, minority representation in C-suite positions is slowly increasing. There are numerous barriers to wealth, education, and success for Black people in the United States, where systemic racism is still being dismantled.

Some of the Black CEOs are corporate powerhouses, while others are up-and-comers who are just beginning to make waves. Successful in a role dominated by white men, they embody determination, mental acuity, and business savvy.

Top Black CEOs

The CEOs on our list have overcome incredible odds to achieve business success at a very high level. The list includes Black executives leading some of the country's largest companies, including Fortune 500 businesses, as well as leaders whose roles are notable because of their company's size, market position, or influence.

Peter Akwaboah, Fannie Mae

Peter Akwaboah is the acting chief executive officer of Fannie Mae, the government-sponsored housing finance company. He took the role in October 2025 after Priscilla Almodovar stepped down. He also remains its chief operating officer (COO).

His appointment placed him at the head of one of the most important institutions in the U.S. mortgage market at a time of leadership change and policy scrutiny in housing finance.

Christopher C. Womack, Southern Company

Christopher C. Womack is chairman, president, and chief executive officer of Southern Company, one of the largest energy providers in the U.S. Womack became CEO in 2023 after more than three decades in the energy industry.

He now leads Southern Company at a time when utilities are racing to meet growing electricity demand from data centers, artificial intelligence, and industrial expansion while balancing the transition to lower-carbon energy sources.

Thasunda Brown Duckett, TIAA

As only the fourth Black woman in history to lead a Fortune 500 company, Thasunda Brown Duckett took the helm at TIAA in May 2021, moving there from her position as chief executive at JPMorgan Chase Consumer Banking.

The company, more than a century old, was founded to create a sustainable retirement system for teachers; it is committed to helping communities build wealth through financial education.

Marvin Ellison, Lowe’s

Marvin Ellison is the president, chairman, and chief executive officer of Lowe's, a position he has held since 2018.

Before joining Lowe's, he served as chairman and CEO of J.C. Penney, making him the only Black executive to lead two different Fortune 500 companies. Ellison began his career as a part-time employee at Target, earning $4.35 an hour while attending college, before rising through leadership roles at Target, Home Depot, and J.C. Penney to become one of the country's most prominent retail executives.

Marvin has earned many distinctions, including Fortune's "Most Inspirational CEOs," Savoy's "Most Influential Black Executives in Corporate America," and Barron's "Top CEOs," as well as receiving the National Retail Federation's Visionary Award and the McGowan Fund Ethical Leader of the Year award.

Janice Bryant Howroyd, ActOne

ActOne founder and CEO Janice Bryant Howroyd is a self-made inspiration for women of color. She lived in Los Angeles with only $1,500 to her name in 1978 when she started ActOne, her workforce solutions company.

Operating in 47 countries with 2,600 employees and 28,000 clients worldwide, ActOne is the largest privately held female-owned and minority-owned workforce management company in the United States.

Calvin Butler, Exelon

Calvin Butler is president and chief executive officer of Exelon, one of the largest utility companies in the United States by customer count. Butler became CEO at the end of 2022 after holding leadership roles across the company for more than a decade.

Before joining Exelon, Butler worked as an attorney and public affairs executive, giving him an unusually broad background that spans law, government relations, and utility operations.

He's been recognized time and again for his leadership and community involvement. Savoy magazine named him "Most Influential Executives in America" in 2024, the Daily Record honored him three times with Maryland's "Most Admired CEOs," and Black Enterprise magazine named him "Most Influential Black Executives in Corporate America" in 2020.

He has become a leading voice on the modernization of the electric grid as utilities confront rising demand from data centers, electrification, and increasingly severe weather events.

David P. Bozeman, C.H. Robinson Worldwide

David Bozeman is president and chief executive officer of C.H. Robinson Worldwide, one of the world's largest logistics companies. He became CEO in 2023 after senior leadership positions at Amazon and Ford Motor Company.

Bozeman's career has taken him from manufacturing and supply-chain roles at Caterpillar to leadership positions at two of the world's most influential companies, where he helped oversee transportation, manufacturing, and logistics operations. He brings that cross-industry experience to C.H. Robinson, making him one of the few Fortune 500 CEOs to have held senior leadership positions at three of America's largest industrial and technology companies.

Jen Asher, 1910

This rising star is both a founder and CEO of 1910, a biotech company that focuses on decreasing the timeline of drug development so that doctors can distribute innovative therapies to patients in need. Asher's company combines biological automation and automated tools to advance drug discovery practices.

The subject of her dissertation inspired Asher to start 1910. Sickle cell anemia affects Black people more than any other ethnicity. As CEO, she seeks to increase the diversity of clinical drug candidates and create medicines that treat genetic diseases that affect minorities.

Robert F. Smith, Vista Equity Partners

Serving as the CEO of his own company, Vista Equity Partners, Robert F. Smith focuses his personal and business investments on software and technology companies. Smith is an avid investor himself, and Vista Equity Partners is a leading investment firm that invests exclusively in enterprise software, data, and tech.

Smith made headlines in 2019 when he paid off the student debt of everyone in the Morehouse College graduating class that year. He announced the gift during a speech at the graduation ceremony. In October 2020, Smith admitted to evading taxes on over $200 million in income and agreed to pay $139 million in fines and cooperate with investigators. The agreement he made with the IRS allowed Smith to avoid prosecution, maintain control of his private equity firm, and continue his philanthropy in advancing the world socially, digitally, and financially.

Growing up as a young Black man in Colorado, Smith says that he only knew one Black business leader. “I realized that part of my role and responsibility now," he said later, "is I have to give some of these young people someone they can look to and say, ‘Ok, if that guy could do it, I could do it.’”

The Bottom Line

Black people are systemically limited in the amount of funding and wealth they can achieve. Black entrepreneurs and business owners still face unequal access to capital, and Black representation remains thin at the highest levels of large-company leadership.

Still, the current generation of Black CEOs includes leaders running companies in housing finance, retail, energy, banking, logistics, healthcare, and media commerce. That is why the names on this list are so groundbreaking.

Celebrating successful Black CEOs and spotlighting their achievements impacts minorities worldwide. When people of color hold wealthy and powerful positions, other people of color—men, women, children, non-binary, and trans—can see that anything is possible, even in a nation where the power structure was built by and for White men.