Variations on the trope
A well-known variation of the CCE, which is popular in dystopian and Cyberpunk fiction, is the CEO or President of a megacorporation that produces and controls everything (even the authorities) and is the de facto ruler of the world. Similarly powerful CCEs are popular villains in superhero stories, as an explanation for why you need costumed vigilantes rather than ordinary police in the first place (because the local/national government works for the CCE, not the public).Another variation of the CCE is the Robber Baron, a pre-80s, industrial revolution era manifestation that retains all of the CCE's cosmopolitan, far-reaching financial and political power, with perhaps even less governmental or media constraints to consider. Joseph Pulitzer, from the movie Newsies, is a perfect example of this subtrope. The Robber Baron will have a different wardrobe and jargon than the 80s CCE, as appropriate to his setting, but is otherwise indistinguishable.
Another variation on the CCE, found mostly in Walking the Earth series, is a business-owning Small-Town Tyrant. The "corporations" they represent are not major multinational conglomerates, but small businesses like trucking companies, hotels, or other "mom and pop" ventures that simply want their competitors out of action. They tend to have little power outside of a single town or county, but can usually amass a small army of redneckish goons and threaten violence with impunity by virtue of paying off local law enforcement and/or the judiciary. (More so if they're literal public officials themselves: merely owning the business while in office can count toward this trope in jurisdictions where public officials are barred from even owning or managing them, in expectation that they will use public office for private gain.) This flavor of Corrupt Corporate Executive favors harassing a competing store owned by a kindly old man/woman and/or their family.
In the last decade a quintessentially 21st-century or modern variant of the CCE can be seen in the persona of the Tech Bro: entrepreneurs who started out as nerds or reclusive hackers, until they became Mad Scientists who create radically new technological startups involving internet apps or social media networks—and then get insanely wealthy when they roll out their product to the world. Often seen as outwardly laid-back, playful, down-to-earth or rebellious and claiming to fight or destroy "the system" or eschew typical corporate offices in favour of places like Wacky Startup Workplaces, and even sometimes despite public-minded statements to the contrary, in an overlapping with Mad Scientist fashion they can still be quite cold in their pursuit of profit and control in their own ways, including by manipulating partners to give them control or ownership of related tech businesses or intellectual property rights such as patents.
Why the popularity behind this trope
Besides grievances with the capitalist system and corporate structures, there is a reason this such a common villain type. Every villain needs to have two things:- A motivation: usually, this is something the villain wants to get, but occasionally it is to preserve a current order that favors them.
- A means of accomplishing their goals.
The corrupt corporate executive has both of those built in. The CCE wants more money and uses money to get it. If he (and it usually is a he) is a reactionary villain, it is easy to set up a system where the executive is already in a favorable situation. Solving both of these problems saves the creator of the work a lot of time, especially if they want to focus on the heroes more than the antagonist.
