The typical CEO spends their time attending conferences, strategizing with their board, and, within the case of the boss of semiconductor big ASML, batting off questions on methods to get to the place he’s.
It’s an comprehensible question. As CEO of the Fortune 500 Europe lithography group, Christophe Fouquet is answerable for one of the strategically vital corporations on this planet. His €3.5 million ($3.6 million) pay packet final 12 months, and extra in collected inventory choices, doesn’t mood the envy both.
However chatting with Norges Financial institution Funding Administration CEO Nicolai Tangen on his In Good Firm podcast, Fouquet indicated the question stands out as a constant shortcoming amongst bold children.
“I see too many young people who come to see me, and so they wish to be CEO, and so they ask me ‘how can we grow to be CEO?’ And I attempt to clarify to them within the nicest attainable approach that that is nearly an absurd question,” stated Fouquet.
“This isn’t the precise question. The proper question is what am I going to do tomorrow that actually will get me excited, that actually brings the very best out of me?
“As a result of when you go and do this each day, there could also be an opportunity you grow to be CEO—likely a much bigger likelihood that you do not—however you’ll equally find yourself doing one thing that brings you pleasure, vitality, and most significantly brings that to the people round you.”
Fouquet, who says he by no means harbored ambitions for the C-Suite in his early years, says this could lengthen to the topics young people select to review at college, arguing it’s extra vital to do one thing you take pleasure in than taking a career-focused method.
The ASML CEO says this method to career growth might help section development into two elements, centered on gaining affect earlier than studying methods to use it.
“I feel the primary a part of your career is about proving your self, I actually consider that,” stated Fouquet, including he realized this a part of his life had concluded when he took cost of a product unit at ASML greater than a decade in the past.
“And you then look ahead, you say, okay, what’s subsequent… what can I do to assist and the place is the place the place I can do one thing that issues?”
Fouquet’s position has remodeled throughout his time at ASML. At $230 billion, the group is value orders of magnitude greater than when he joined the corporate in 2008.
Shares within the group ballooned following the COVID-19 pandemic, first throughout a broad enhance in demand for tech shares and once more in the course of the AI growth.
The firm provides its lithography machines to the world’s greatest corporations, together with Nvidia, which permits the manufacturing of superior semiconductors utilized in AI purposes.
As a key a part of the worldwide provide chain, Foquest’s position is just more likely to develop in significance.
Editor’s be aware: A model of this text first appeared on Fortune.com on February 12, 2025.
This story was initially featured on Fortune.com
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