CEO
- 1Initialism of chief executive officer.
The board appointed a new CEO after months of searching.
Shareholders questioned the CEO about declining profits.
Note
The boardroom title for the officer who runs a company, corporation or agency day to day, carrying out the policies set by the board of directors. It is spoken letter by letter and pluralized plainly as CEOs. It often stands before a name like a rank (GE CEO Jack Welch) or after a word naming the industry (tech CEOs). The same letters stand for several other titles, so context decides which one is meant.
- 2To run a company or other organization as its chief executive officer.
He went on to CEO at two different firms before retiring.
She CEOed through the company's toughest financial year.
Note
The noun pressed into service as a verb, with its endings attached straight to the capitals: CEOs, CEOing, CEOed, no apostrophe. It is intransitive, so the company enters with a preposition. Michael Andreoni's The Window Is a Mirror (2018) has a man who "CEOed at three companies." Its jokey ring suits conversation and light journalism; formal writing still prefers serve as CEO.
- 3Initialism of civil enforcement officer.
The CEO logged the vehicle's registration before issuing a penalty notice.
Two CEOs were assigned to monitor the town center's loading bays.
Note
Britain's newer name for an old job: in England and Wales, the officer who enforces parking and traffic restrictions, a role formerly called parking attendant. The newer title also covers a wider brief, taking in traffic and other restrictions as well as parking. Like any job title it counts normally, so a council deploys two CEOs. Outside a parking context, spell it out, or readers will hear the company head.
- 4Initialism of city engineering office.
The CEO oversees road construction and drainage projects across the municipality.
Permit applications for sidewalk work are reviewed by the CEO.
Note
A Philippine local-government term. It names a municipal department rather than a person, which is what sets it apart from the corporate title. Like other office names, it usually takes the definite article and acts as an institution: the CEO reviews permits, oversees projects, approves work. A reader outside the Philippines will expect a chief executive, so the full form is safer on first mention.
- 5Acronym of current engine option.
Many carriers continued operating the CEO while awaiting delivery of the re-engined variant.
The CEO remained in production for several years after the upgrade was announced.
Note
An aviation label for an airliner as it stands with its existing engines. Here current is the adjective meaning "existing at the moment," not the flow of air or electricity, which is easy to misread in an engineering context. The term works both ways: countably for the aircraft variant itself (operating the CEO) and uncountably for the engine configuration it names.
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