[imagesource: Getty Images]

Fortune‘s annual ranking of America’s largest companies, the Fortune 500, also looks into the folks running the show.

These individuals are responsible for pushing their companies to forge ahead despite the ongoing supply chain crisis and, of course, the ever-present COVID-19 pandemic.

But the younger, the better, right?

On average, the CEO of a Fortune 500 company is around 57 years old – established and likely greying.

But there are also a select few executives who are in their 30s and 40s, which means they’ve managed to guide their businesses through the pits and plateaus in just a decade or so.

Sitting on top of the list of the five youngest Fortune 500 CEOs is everyone’s least favourite social media tycoon, Mark Zuckerberg.

He’s there by default, but we won’t blame you if you skip past him and get to know the other movers and shakers on the list.

1. Mark Zuckerberg

• Age: 37
• CEO tenure: 18 years
• Company: Meta Platforms
• Fortune 500 rank: #27
• Revenue: $117,9 billion

As a 19-year-old Harvard student, Zuckerberg developed ‘The Facebook’ in his dorm, which has become pop culture lore thanks to the 2011 film, The Social Network.

Then, aged 23, he became the youngest self-made billionaire in history with Facebook’s IPO in 2008.

2. Brian Armstrong

Image: Winni Wintermeyer / Redux

• Age: 39
• CEO tenure: 10 years
• Company: Coinbase Global
• Fortune 500 Rank: #437
• Revenue: $7,8 billion

In his late 20s, Armstrong was a technical product manager at Airbnb, which is when, noticing how difficult it was to send money internationally, he came up with his company idea.

Coinbase was founded in 2012 and is now one of the largest exchanges in the cryptocurrency space. It currently has a disclosed user base of about 98 million verified accounts.

TIME reported that Armstrong reckons an economy with widespread cryptocurrency adoption offers more opportunity than the current system.

It’s one reason why he unveiled GiveCrypto.org, which seeks to distribute digital currency to people in poverty.

3. Eric Wu

Image: Opendoor

• Age: 39
• CEO tenure: 8 years
• Company: Opendoor Technologies
• Fortune 500 rank: #425
• Revenue: $8 billion

While many other students were barely scraping by hustling with side jobs, Wu had the foresight to spend his college scholarship money investing in property.

Wu spent his college years putting together a nifty real-estate portfolio, which included an impressive 25 properties by the time he graduated from the University of Arizona in 2005.

CNBC Make It has more:

“I used my scholarship funds to use as a down-payment, and then I lived in the home and rented out some of the rooms. And then I used that [monthly rent income] to pay for my living costs and other things associated with being at school,” Wu says of the property.

Now he’s currently worth around $1,2 billion after co-founding Opendoor Technologies, one of the major “ibuyers”, or instant buyers of real estate, in America.

4. Ernest C. Garcia III

Image: CNBC

• Age: 40
• CEO tenure: 11 years
• Company: Carvana
• Fortune 500 rank: 290
• Revenue: $12,8 billion

Garcia is also a founder, having co-created Carvana at age 30, as well as sitting on the company’s board:

Garcia’s father, Ernest Garcia II, is still Carvana’s largest shareholder, but also employed his son for over five years at his used-car retailing and financing firm, DriveTime.

Caravana is an e-commerce company for buying and selling used cars directly instead of relying on middlemen. The company also offers financing services, per Forbes.

5. Sarah M. London

Image: Centene Corporation

• Age: 41
• CEO tenure: Two months
• Company: Centene
• Fortune 500 Rank: #26
• Revenue: $125,9 billion

Finally, a woman.

After her 79-year-old boss, Michael Neirdoff, took a medical leave of absence, London took over at Centene, a healthcare corporation serving both government-sponsored and privately insured healthcare programmes in the US:

Prior to her appointment, London was the vice chairman of Centene’s board of directors. She has a background in both healthcare and tech, including stints as Centene’s SVP of technology innovation and modernization and as chief product officer for Optum Analytics.

Per her company profile, she received an M.B.A. with High Honours from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a B.A. Magna Cum Laude in History & Literature from Harvard College.

[sources:fortune&time&cnbcmakeit&forbes]