C-SUITE Definition & Meaning

C-suite

[ see-sweet ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

adjective

noting or relating to executives at the C-level, the highest management level in an organization:
C-suite leadership.

noun

the top executives in an organization, considered collectively:
decision-making by the C-suite.

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51�Թ� History and Origins

Origin of C-suite¹

First recorded in 1990–95

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

The data backs her up: The Muse’s 2024 Women’s Workplace Experience Report found that 42% of women have encountered gender-biased or inappropriate questions during the hiring process, with C-suite women facing it at even higher rates.

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That deal brought to the C-suite the acquired company’s top management and its cost-cutting culture; in the Boeing corridors, the standing joke was that “McDonnell Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing’s money.”

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She portrays them as a C-suite Tom and Daisy who were granted public images wildly at odds with their actual selves and who struggled with maintaining that grandiose facade over their clear self-obsessions.

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The revamp also may have resulted from the fact that Reddit went public in 2024, which led to the C-suite implementing controversial, much-protested changes in order to make actual money and get a nice stock value for its initial public offering.

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It’s easy to see what that arrangement might have initially delighted Boeing’s C-suite, but it proved dangerous, both for Boeing’s customers and for the company itself.

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More About C-suite

What does C-suite mean?

C-suite refers to the group of highest-level executive positions within a corporation or organization, also known as C-level positions.

Where does C-suite come from?

In the corporate world, C-suite is used to refer to those within the most senior group—or suite, in this case meaning “set”—of managers in a company.

The names of these positions generally begin with the letter C for chief, for example, the chief executive officer (CEO), chief financial officer (CFO), chief operating officer (COO), and chief information officer (CIO). People in this suite are also referred to as C-levels or C-level executives.

C-suite was first recorded around 1990–1995. The use of the term has broadened to refer to being in a position of power and authority more generally.

How is C-suite used in real life?

C-suite was originally, and is still, used as business jargon for corporate senior management.

Its meaning has extended to informally mean “making it to the top” of a business, and it is increasingly used outside the business world as slang for inclusion among the most important or elite people within a given community or enterprise.

C-suite can act as a collective noun for senior management (e.g., the C-suite) as well as a modifier for that level of authority (e.g., C-suite responsibilities).

More examples of C-suite:

“Casey Foss (@cfoss24) shares how she’s learned to balance motherhood with a career in the C-Suite”

—West Monroe Careers, January 2018

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