What sets rapidly expanding companies apart from the rest?
The Forbes Research 2025 CxO Growth Survey reveals that C-suite executives of high-growth organizations — businesses that boosted revenue by at least 10% in the last fiscal year — share several strategic similarities distinguishing them from their slower-growth peers.
The survey polled more than 1,000 global executives, about one in four (24%) of whom fall into this high-growth cohort. The results show that these successful leaders are more likely to be focusing on three priorities: workforce wellbeing, AI adoption and environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives.
Compared to leaders at lower-growth companies, or those with less than 10% annual revenue gain in the last fiscal year, here’s what high-growth executives are doing differently:
1) Promoting A Happier, Healthier Workforce
High-growth CxOs are emphasizing workplace wellness and ensuring talent is skilled for the future by:
- Preventing burnout: Chief human resources officers at high-growth companies are significantly more concerned with promoting work-life balance and keeping employees from burning out: Forty-eight percent of high-growth CHROs list this as one of their greatest workforce challenges to tackle the coming year, compared with 28% of CHROs at lower-growth companies.
- Enhancing employee experience: Improving the employee experience is a revenue driver that 34% of high-growth C-suite leaders say they’re currently prioritizing. By comparison, 26% of lower-growth CxOs say the same.
- Investing in people: Ninety-six percent of high-growth CHROs agree there is a strong business case for investing in employee mental health and well-being. At lower-growth companies, 79% of CHROs agree.
- Retooling talent: Fifty-five percent of high-growth CxOs say that they’re currently prioritizing upskilling their existing workforce, whereas 45% of lower-growth leaders say the same.
2) Accelerating AI Deployment
High-growth C-suite leaders appear to be more aggressively adopting AI across their organizations with moves like:
- Scaling implementation: At high-growth organizations, 57% of chief information officers are currently deploying artificial intelligence and machine learning across the enterprise. Forty-four percent of CIOs at lower-growth companies are doing the same.
- Expanding budgets: While the vast majority of leaders plan to boost AI spending, high-growth CxOs are more likely to have plans to increase investments by at least 16% from last year.
- Upskilling employees: Fifty-four percent of high-growth CHROs are promoting retraining and data analysis and AI skills development, versus 47% of their lower-growth peers.
3) Advancing ESG And Sustainability Initiatives
Leaders of high-growth firms seem to view sustainability spending and ESG as part of a broader revenue strategy with:
- Bigger budgets: Thirty-nine percent of high-growth chief financial officers (versus 27% of lower-growth CFOs) say they’re very likely to plan to fund ESG or broader sustainability initiatives over the next year to ensure their company’s growth.
- An opportunity mindset: Thirty-seven percent of high-growth chief executive officers view sustainability as an opportunity for their organization over the next year. By comparison, 28% of lower-growth CEOs say the same.
- Strong sustainability goals: Thirty-seven percent of high-growth executives (versus 32% of others) say they will prioritize strengthening sustainability efforts over the next two years.