what is upper management 
upper management includes individuals and teams that are responsible for making the primary decisions within a company understanding upper managementpersonnel considered to be part of a company s upper management are at the top of the corporate ladder and carry a degree of responsibility greater than lower level personnel upper management members are imbued with powers given by the company s shareholders or board of directors examples of upper management personnel include ceos cfos and coos shareholders hold a company s upper management responsible for keeping a company profitable and growing shareholders do this by exercising their voting power to install boards of directors that will fire underperforming or otherwise disapproved managers because upper management personnel members are often not seen by most employees they are not expected to engage in day to day operations upper management s duties responsibilities and careers are often tied directly to a company s direction performance and success because these positions responsibilities are pivotal to a company s success or failure they also receive great benefits managers and supervisors relay upper management directives to junior staff and lower level employees employees typically are measured against daily goals such as the flow of sales at their retail location or the number of customers they serve upper management may face a wholly different degree of criteria the overall sales across a division or regional market may be used to gauge the job performance of the executive in upper management who oversees said division for instance a scientist or other researcher working for a drug company can be expected to take a direct hands on role in the development of new drug candidates they will conduct the tests and reformulations to advance the potential product toward submission to regulators a middle manager might lead their team working on the project but an executive from upper management will have the prevailing authority on the direction the team takes and bear responsibility for how their efforts affect the company as a whole if the drug development is a success and furthers the company s strategic plans the executive who heads the division may be assigned similar projects in the future if a company performs below its targeted goals loses traction compared to its rivals or its market valuation declines members of upper management may face the most immediate scrutiny from shareholders persistent poor performance of the company could prompt a shakeup of the upper management this may be focused on one or more individuals such as the ceo or could be a sweeping removal of the executive leadership the removal of upper management may be done to salvage a company s business and operations and introduce a new direction to follow a new upper management team might be brought in to correct the course of the company and prepare it to pursue a new direction which may include a sale of the business c suite rolesc suite or c level is widely used vernacular describing a cluster of a corporation s most important senior executives c suite gets its name from the titles of top senior staffers which tend to start with the letter c for chief as in chief executive officer ceo chief financial officer cfo chief operating officer coo and chief information officer cio the main c suite executives are other c suite officers include the chief compliance officer cco chief human resources manager chrm chief security officer cso chief green officer cgo chief analytics officer cao chief medical officer cmo and chief data officer cdo the number of c level positions varies depending on variables such as a company s size mission and sector while larger companies may require both a chrm and a coo smaller operations may only need a coo to oversee human resources activities 