I have seen the chief executive officer’s job from numerous angles. As I grew up, the lionisation of CEOs had begun. Magazines started featuring them on covers – people such as Lee Iacocca at Chrysler, Harold Geneen at ITT, Reg Jones at General Electric. They were usually lined, middle-aged men who looked as though they had been around the block.

Later, when I was studying for an MBA at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, North Carolina, I came across a different breed of chief executive – people who were more irreverent and casual but inspirational and entrepreneurial. They were cut from a different cloth: energetic, opinionated, risk-taking. And then, over the past decade working at the global headhunters Heidrick & Struggles, I have met and recruited literally hundreds of CEOs from all over the world.

Working in Asia and with Asian CEOs opened my eyes to the huge demands, pleasures and rewards of the top job, which in Asia is seen in a broader social context. It is not about getting on the cover of a magazine, although that happens, but is focused on longer-term stewardship.

This ignited my thinking about what the job really entails. The Asian view accorded with my own: while business results are essential, the best chief executives bring a lot more than business performance. They shape cultures, create organisations, invent markets and inspire people.

But what qualities are needed to make the grade? The days of the CEO who worked his or her way up from the shop floor with no university education appear to be over. The latest Route to the Top study by Dr Elisabeth Marx highlights the changing career profiles of CEOs leading the UK’s FTSE 100 companies. Whereas at first sight the profile does not seem to have changed much in that the chief executive is still mostly a man, average age 52 and likely to come from an accountancy background, a closer analysis of the data shows a remarkable shift in the career pattern and appointment of CEOs.

Perhaps the most notable is that international experience has risen dramatically. Whereas in 1996 only 42 per cent of CEOs of FTSE 100 companies had undertaken an overseas assignment, this rose to 67 per cent last year. It is also no surprise that 32 per cent of FTSE 100 CEOs come from outside the UK.

There are hundreds of books about careers yet nobody I have met has had a career like the ones you read about. In books, careers are planned, orderly, linear. One thing leads to another. If you can pull it off, it is quite an achievement but, in my experience, careers are messy, spontaneous and exciting. Careers are the story of your life. I worked in banking in America, then taught English in Asia. Later I joined Heidrick & Struggles and set up its financial services practice in Japan.

While working at Heidrick I did an MBA at Fuqua, getting up at 5.30am to study for a couple of hours and then for eight to ten hours at the weekend.

I am now the chief executive but never dreamt of becoming CEO. When the job came up, I was approached as an internal candidate. For any candidate for a chief executive post, even becoming part of the process is a big decision.

It makes you think of what is right for the business, yourself and your family. Are you ready to really put yourself on the line? The only person who can answer this is you.

Kevin Kelly is the author of CEO: The Low Down on the Top Job (FT Prentice Hall)

Times Recommends

• Inspirational leadership
• How to get a new job
• The reluctant CEO