Black Americans make up 13 percent of all employees, however, they account for just 7 percent of managerial roles and 4 percent to 5 percent of senior management positions, according to a 2021 McKinsey study.
Since 1955, Fortune has been ranking the 500 largest U.S. companies by revenue and the work of the CEOs who lead them. In the 2025 Fortune 500, nine companies are led by Black CEOs, with two of these leaders being women. This represents just 1.8 percent of the largest U.S. businesses, a slight increase from 1.6 percent in both 2023 and 2024, Fortune wrote. The nine companies on this year’s list generated $244.76 billion in revenue for fiscal year 2024.
Topping the list is the company Lowe’s, led by CEO Marvin Ellison. “The home improvement giant ranked No. 52, employs about 300,000 workers, and reported $83.67 billion in revenue and nearly $7 billion in profits,” Fortune wrote.
RELATED STORIES
READ ALSO: How Marvin R. Ellison became the only Black CEO to lead two Fortune 500 companies
Before he joined Lowe’s, Ellison spent more than a decade at The Home Depot, where he started as an “asset protection,” a term for anti-theft measures in the early 2000s, C-Suite Spotlight reported. He later rose to senior-level operations roles, serving as executive vice president of U.S. stores, where he was in charge of the overall operations of 2,000 stores including $65 billion in annual sales volume. He had previously worked at Target, where he held several leadership positions. He was also named CEO of J.C. Penney in 2014 but he resigned from the Fortune 500 company in 2018 to join Lowe’s.
Ellison thus has the rare distinction of being the only Black executive to have CEO positions at two different Fortune 500 companies.
The Black executive’s journey to the top of a Fortune 500 company did not come easy. He hails from a simple family of sharecroppers in Tennessee. Until he turned six, his family did not have indoor plumbing. Nonetheless, he credits his parents for his success.
His professionalism has won him multiple accolades, according to Lowe’s, with the notable ones being multiple appearances on Barron’s annual list of “Top CEOs”; inclusion on Fortune’s “Most Inspirational CEOs” and “World’s Greatest Leaders” lists; and being named “Father of the Year” by the National Father’s Day Council, “Corporate Executive of the Year” by Black Enterprise and one of Savoy’s “Most Influential Black Executives in Corporate America.” In 2023, he received the National Retail Federation’s Visionary Award.
Ellison, with over 35 years of retail leadership and experience in operations, has a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from The University of Memphis. He also holds an MBA from Emory University.
Thasunda Brown Duckett, CEO of Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA), follows Ellis on the Fortune 500 list.
Below are the Black CEOs leading the 2025 Fortune 500
Marvin Ellison
CEO, Lowe’s
Revenue: $83.67 billion
Thasunda Brown Duckett
CEO, Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA)
Revenue: $46.95 billion
Christopher Womack
CEO, Southern Company
Revenue: $26.72 billion
Calvin Butler Jr.
CEO, Exelon
Revenue: $23.03 billion
David Bozeman
CEO, C.H. Robinson Worldwide
Revenue: $17.73 billion
Michael Bender
Interim CEO, Kohl’s
Revenue: $16.22 billion
René Jones
CEO, M&T Bank
Revenue: $13.45 billion
David Rawlinson II
CEO, QVC Group
Revenue: $10.04 billion
Toni Townes-Whitley
CEO, Science Applications International (SAIC)
Revenue: $7.48 billion
