Are Gen Z Ready for the C-Suite?

Young workers are increasingly occupying top positions. Without decades of experience, do they have what it takes to handle the responsibilities? Plus, college admissions are changing – and this could affect the workforce.

Gen Z are running companies – are they ready?

Elle De Freitas has the kind of jam-packed schedule you’d expect of a typical CEO running a successful social media marketing company.?

As founder and head of Austin, Texas-based Wonderkind Co , she has meetings with her eight-person leadership team to discuss new business; calls with clients about their Instagram and TikTok campaigns; pitch sessions with prospects; and a weekly all-hands update with her 50 employees.

What makes De Freitas stand out is her age: at 31, she is younger than most chief executives, and her entire C-suite is comprised of Gen Z professionals no older than 26.

It may be unconventional for such a green leader to helm a company – with such a young executive team to boot. Still, De Freitas believes she’s up for the task. Even though she often asks herself whether she’s “qualified” or “ready for the job”, she says, “every good decision I make allows me to feel more confident in my leadership abilities”.?

Corporate leadership is traditionally associated with experience and age. The conventional wisdom is it takes many years to accumulate the knowledge and expertise needed to run a company.

Today, however, new generations of workers are challenging this idea. As young millennials and even Gen Zers ascend to leadership positions – some founding companies, others running major initiatives and teams within established enterprises – they’re bringing fresh perspectives, new approaches and a different mindset to management.?

These young people are eager to take the reins and redefine leadership – but are they ready?

Read more from Rebecca M. Knight on how young workers are navigating leadership.?

How changing college admissions could affect the US workforce

American college admissions are changing.

On 29 June, a US Supreme Court ruling struck down?affirmative action: the practice of favouring individuals in disadvantaged groups, largely aimed at eliminating discrimination among marginalised applicants. The?majority of Justices voted against the policy, instituted in the 1960s, ruling American universities considering race in the admissions process is unconstitutional.

Another change, albeit much smaller, is the emerging removal of "legacy" admissions. This policy provides favour to applicants related to university alumni, or who are related to a donor.

Many groups have?criticised this admissions approach, arguing it gives disproportionate advantage to well-connected white students. In a complaint submitted with the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, records showed 70% of?legacy applicants at Harvard University?are white, and they are six-times more likely than other applicants to be admitted.?Following the affirmative action ruling, legacy admissions has become increasingly contentious: on 25 July, the US Education Department?opened a civil-rights investigation into the Ivy League school’s legacy policy.

Some universities are voluntarily choosing to drop this policy from the selection process: on 19 July, in one of the most high-profile moves, Connecticut-based liberal-arts college?Wesleyan University took the decision to end legacy admissions.

The striking down of affirmative action in higher education and the renewed focus on legacy admissions has the potential to shake up the demographics of students who are admitted – effects that could change the composition of the US workforce.

However, say experts, these moves are not equal in how they’ll touch the diversity of student bodies and graduates, and the subsequent possible downstream effects on the workforce they may create.

Read more from Ashwin R. and Leah Carroll on the possible future of the workforce.

Thanks for reading this week. Visit BBC Worklife?and?BBC Business for the latest.

–Meredith Turits, Editor, BBC Worklife