Skip to main content
senior vice president

senior vice president

31 3.9
A top company manager who leads major divisions and ranks above other vice presidents
  • noun
  • /ˈsiː.njər vaɪs ˈprɛzɪdənt/
translation icon : vicepresidente ejecutivo
  • Editor's note: James Lindsay is senior vice president and director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
  • senior vice president and general counsel
  • senior vice president of corporate affairs
  • senior vice president for technology

And Rick Dempsey, my good friend now who's the chief, I think his title is senior vice president of character voices at Disney.

Autoplay Next

Examples

  • Many small colleges have the benefit of a unique niche, said Hal Hartley, senior vice president at the Council of Independent Colleges.

    Academic text (2016)
  • Heric is the senior vice president for business affairs at St. John's.

    Academic text (1994)
  • As of yesterday, I am the senior vice president in charge of corporate publicity.

  • By day, I work at a public relations firm as its senior vice president of digital integration.

    Blog text (8)
  • John C. Mihm is a senior vice president of technology and project development for Phillips Petroleum Co.

    Academic text (2002)
  • Also, they have hired David Demartini, which is kind of scary because he was the senior vice president at Electronics Arts.

  • John G. Voeller is senior vice president, chief knowledge officer, and chief technology officer for Black & Veatch.

    Academic text (2010)
  • For 30 years, he was with Sargent & Lundy, retiring as a senior vice president.

    Academic text (2002)
  • "Tonight's games will be played," Tim Frank, the N.B.A.'s senior vice president for communications, told the New York Times.

    Blog text (13)
  • As senior vice president, I oversee multiple departments to ensure smooth operations.

Synonyms

executive vice president
vssenior vice president
  • US
29 5.3

A senior manager who leads major company divisions and reports to the CEO

is the highest-ranking among multiple deputies, overseeing major divisions overall

How Senior

president
  • US
355 3.0
senior vice president
31 3.9
vice president
352 3.4

Surface Forms

Morphology

senior + vice + president

The meaning is fully compositional: 'senior' (higher-ranking) modifies 'vice president' (a deputy or second-in-command president-level executive), so 'senior vice president' straightforwardly denotes a higher-ranking vice president. This corporate-title structure is common and cross-linguistically transparent, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words can readily infer the meaning.

Etymology

The term senior vice president comes from a simple image: vice means 'in place of' or 'assistant', and senior means 'higher in rank'. So the senior vice president is the top deputy among several vice presidents, which is why the title means the highest-ranking vice president.