How are CEOs influenced by their spouse?

In corporate leadership, risk is a defining factor that shapes not only the trajectory of companies but also the broader economy.

Yet, while much attention has been paid to the individual characteristics of CEOs, a quieter influence often operates behind the scenes: their spouses.

Consider two well-known examples. Kevin Systrom, Instagram’s co-founder, credited his wife, Nicole, for suggesting the iconic filters that improved the app’s user experience.

While on vacation, Nicole remarked that she might not use Instagram because her photos didn’t look as polished as those of Systrom and his friends, who enhanced their images with filters. This simple observation sparked the creation of Instagram’s first filter, X-Pro II, a feature that became pivotal to the app’s fabulous success.

Similarly, Marvin Ellison, CEO of home improvement retailer Lowe’s, has said he values his wife’s input on business decisions ranging from store layouts to customer service improvements.

These anecdotes highlight a simple yet profound truth – the personal dynamics of leaders can continue to ripple far beyond the home.

My research, published in the Journal of Corporate Finance and co-authored by Carina Cuculiza, Alok Kumar and Lizhengbo Yang, uncovers a surprising insight into these dynamics: CEOs with more risk-averse spouses tend to lead companies that take fewer risks.

This can have a significant effect. When a spouse is markedly more risk-averse, corporate risk-taking drops by about eight per cent.

This finding challenges traditional notions of leadership as an isolated endeavor, and suggests that understanding a CEO’s risk profile requires companies to look beyond the individual to the relationships and cultural influences that shape them.

Personal factors that affect work decisions

The implications for boards and corporate governance are clear: while boards should not, in my view, directly probe into a CEO’s personal life, they should recognise that risk preferences are shaped by a web of influences.

Traditional assessments of risk attitudes often overlook these environmental factors, but our research suggests that they should be considered.

After all, risk attitudes are a fundamental driver of decision-making, influencing how CEOs invest resources, manage projects and pursue innovation. For businesses, these choices affect growth, shareholder returns, and long-term value creation.

But risk preferences are not static traits. While genetics play a part, the risk preferences of corporate bosses are also shaped by culture, surroundings and close relationships, including the influence of spouses.

The many factors that shape risk make it a complex issue. Boards responsible for choosing leaders must understand this complexity to make sure the CEO’s attitudes match the company’s goals.

Because while CEOs often rely on their executive teams for guidance, the influence of their spouses, though less visible, can be equally profound.

As Systrom and Ellison illustrate, spouses can contribute ideas that change, or inform, business strategies. And our research findings confirm this.

Using data from S&P 500 bosses and their spouses, we studied how cultural differences in risk preferences affect corporate decisions.

We trace the country of origin for each CEO and each CEO's spouse based on their personal biographies from various sources (including Census records, Marquis Who’s Who Biographies, Ancestry.com, etc).

With these biographies, we pin down the cultural origins of CEOs and their spouses. Then, we assign to each CEO and each spouse a risk-attitude measure that reflects their cultural origins based on Hofstede's country-level Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI). This was developed by social psychologist Geert Hofstede to gauge how comfortable a culture is with uncertainty and ambiguity.

Using this measure, we found a link between the difference in UAI scores and corporate risk-taking.

Specifically, we found that a relatively more risk-averse spouse leads to safer business decisions, as reflected in reduced fluctuations in a company’s return on assets. To ensure the robustness of these results, we controlled for various factors, including CEO traits, company characteristics, and broader industry trends.

We also addressed potential concerns about biases, such as the possibility that CEOs might choose spouses with similar risk preferences. The data revealed a low correlation between the risk preferences of CEOs and their spouses, confirming that the spousal influence is distinct.

We then ran extra tests to confirm the results weren’t caused by specific company traits or the sequence of events. For instance, we examined whether companies hire CEOs with risk attitudes that match their needs, and found no link between prior corporate risk-taking and CEO selection.

There were several other factors that affected the degree to which a CEO was influenced by their spouse’s attitudes to risk.

CEOs from cultures that value group connections over individualism are more affected by their spouses, highlighting the role of collective decision-making.

Understanding CEO attitudes to risk

The length of a marriage also matters — spousal influence is stronger in newer marriages where preferences differ, but this effect fades as couples’ attitudes align over time.

Shared responsibilities, like raising children or managing a mortgage, bring spouses’ risk preferences closer together, which further impacts corporate decisions. This shows how the personal and professional worlds are closely connected.

The implications are clear. Boards may already consider the cultural origins of a CEO during hiring decisions. Our findings suggest that they could deepen this understanding by also examining the cultural background of the CEO’s spouse, providing a fuller picture of the leader’s risk profile.

So, our research contributes to a growing body of literature on how personal life intersects with corporate decision-making.

Prior studies have shown that factors like having daughters or cultural heritage shape CEO behavior. Our research expands on this by demonstrating that spousal risk preferences are a big determinant of corporate risk-taking.

The findings also align with broader research on how culture influences financial decisions, from mergers and innovation to stock market participation. Cultural norms, we argue, can be transmitted between spouses, subtly shaping attitudes toward risk that ripple out into the corporate sphere.

The implications extend beyond the boardroom. Risk-taking drives innovation and economic growth, but it also carries potential downsides, such as volatility and overreach. A deeper understanding of what shapes risk attitudes can help companies strike the right balance.

Ultimately, our research invites a reevaluation of how people think about leadership and decision-making.

CEOs are not isolated figures making choices in a vacuum. Their attitudes toward risk are shaped by a constellation of factors, including their most intimate relationships.

Further reading:

Is bias causing business leaders to make mistakes?

Five steps to harness adaptive leadership in challenging times

The 10 questions successful leaders ask to spot a scandal before it happens

The Consistency Trap: How to make better decisions

Constantinos Antoniou is Associate Professor of Finance and Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School. He teaches Behavioural Finance: Psychology and Finance Decisions on the Executive MBA and the Executive MBA (London). He also teaches Behavourial Finance on a range of Master's programmes.

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