Three CEOs on why their unlikely majors were the best choice for careers in business

Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. As college students settle into their fall classes, I thought I’d use this week’s Modern CEO to suggest that aspiring business leaders consider majoring in English or literature. You read that right. I was an English major, and I regularly draw on my humanities education in my role as CEO, albeit of a small media company. My professors helped me appreciate nuance and originality (traits I look for when recruiting talent). During my college years, group discussions about literature taught me that a dozen people could read the same passage and have wildly different interpretations of the material—good preparation for navigating divergent opinions on a leadership team. The art of business I’m not the only English major-turned-CEO to commend my studies. Nikhil Deogun, CEO of the Americas at advisory firm Br…