【单选题】

How to get to the top

Marketing used to be the route to the chief executive’s chair，but the world has changeD、Now，says Monika Hamori．professor of human resources at Instituto deEmpresa in Madrid，it is finance chiefs who are most likely to get the top job，though experience in opera-tions-running parts of the companyis also essential．CFO Magazine found in 2005 that onefifth of chief ex-ecutives inAmerica were former chief financiaI officers，almost double the share of a decade earlier．The importance of quarterly financial reporting，and closer scrutiny since the imposition of the Sarbanesoxley corporategovernance act，have putCFOs in the limelightand given them the chance to shine．
Another factor in reaching the top is whether you stay with the company you joined as a youngster．Ms．Hamori’s research looked at companies in the S&P 500 and the FTSEurofirst 300．She finds that‘lifers’get to the top in 22 years inAmerica and 24 years inEurope：‘Hoppers’who jump between four or more companies，by contrast，take at least 26 years on average to become chief executives．Insiders get promotions that reflect their potential，because their bosses have enough information to be reasonably confident about their ability．When executives switch from one company to another，however，they tend to move less far up the hierarchy，the researchers founD、
The time taken to reach the top is falling．The average time from first job to chief executive fell from 28 years in 1980 to 24 in 2001．Successful executives are spending less time than they used to in each intermediate joban average of four yearsand they fill five posts on the way up．down from six．One reason for this acceleration is that company hierarchies are flatter than they used to be．Another important shift is the advent of female chief executives． 1n 2001 women accounted for 11%of bosses at leadingAmerican companies．ac-cording to the Hamori/Cappelli survey；in the early 1980s there were none．
America is usually regarded as the home of raw capitalism．with youthful managers hopping from firm to firm and pushing their way to the top．But the HamorL/Cappelli study and another byBooz &Company，a consultancy，show thatEurope is a more dynamic and harsher environ-menl thanAmerica or Japan for chief executives．For a start，European chief executives are younger，with an average age of 54．compared with over 56 inAmericA、The Hamor/Cappelli study shows that 26%ofAmerican bos-ses were lifers，compared with only 18%inEurope．
TheEuropeans also have a harder time once they get to the top.Booz ＆Company’s annual survey of chiefexecutive succession shows that 17.6%ofEuropean bosses moved on last year．compared with 15%ofAmericans and 10%of Japanese．Chief executives．the survey found，last longer inAmerica：the average tenure over the past decade was just over nine years．But inEurope the average tenure over the same period was less than seven years．
Moreover．a whopping 37%of changes at the top inEurope were more or less firings，according toBooz，compared with only 27%inAmerica and 12%in Japan．Booz puts this down to the more recent tightening of corporate governance inEurope,AnotherBooz finding is common to both sides of theAtlantic：looking back over recent years，board disputes and power struggles lie behind a third of chiefexecutive firings．In short，shareholder activism is making its presence felt，putting pressure on bosses to perform．
What is true according to the first paragraphA．CFOs’hard work leads to their increasing chances of promotion．
B．CFOs usually have no experience in management．
C．Marketing directors no longer have the chance to get a top position．
D．Chief executives used to be promoted mainly from the marketing department．