Officers

• Both presidents and vice presidents constitute “officers” of a company. Officers qualify as those individuals capable of making and carrying out important decisions that may affect the direction of a corporation. Other officers include the treasurer, secretary and CEO, if a company maintains both a CEO and a president. With publicly traded companies, the board of directors often holds responsibility for appointing all corporate officers. In such instances, the board hires both presidents and vice presidents.
  
  

Authority

• The president of a company holds ultimate authority in many cases. If a company employs both a CEO and a president, the CEO and president may hold equal authority, or the CEO may hold more authority than the president. The vice president holds less authority than the president and CEO. Presidents give direction to vice presidents, which vice presidents carry out by giving direction to lower-level employees. In publicly traded companies, presidents receive direction from the board of directors and can only take action as approved by the board. If a president takes a vacation or goes on leave, the vice president assumes her duties in full until the president’s return.
  
  

Public Presence

• The president and CEO of a company provide the public face of that company. Presidents report to the board of directors and other shareholders, and sometimes hold the responsibility of dealing with the press. Vice presidents rarely, if ever, deal with the press and general public.
  
  

Division of Duties

• Vice presidents often serve specialized duties, while the president of a corporation presides over the company as a whole. For instance, a single company may employ a vice president of marketing, vice president of sales and vice president of human resources. A company with this type of organization may also employ a senior vice president, who acts as a liaison between the divisional vice presidents and the company president/COO/CEO. Vice presidents in such an organization may possess a degree of highly specialized skill, while the presidents holds more generalized business knowledge and experience. Companies divided as such often maintain a “silo” structure with staunchly divided departments operating alongside one another.