How to Find a CEO's Email Address — 6 Methods That Actually Work

1. B2B email finder (best, ~92% hit) — HuntMeLeads, Hunter, RocketReach, Apollo. Paste name + domain, get verified email back. Takes 2 seconds.
2. LinkedIn Sales Navigator + extractor (very good) — find profile, run through extractor with email enrichment. Bonus: also returns mobile direct dial for ~40% of CEOs.
3. SEC filings (US public companies) — proxy statements (DEF 14A) list executive contact info. Always current.
4. Press releases + interviews — CEOs often share their direct email in PR contacts or podcast show notes. Quote-search '"ceoname@" site:company.com' on Google.
5. Pattern guess + verifier (~80% on small co) — try first@, first.last@, flast@. Run each through HuntMeLeads verifier. Stop when one passes SMTP + MX + non-catch-all.
6. EA detour — find the EA's email (usually [first]@ or [first.assistant]@) and ask politely. Works disproportionately well at companies above 1K headcount.

• Subject: hyper-specific, references a real event at their company (acquisition, hire, product launch, podcast appearance)
• Body: under 60 words. One observation + one specific ask. No "Hope you're well." No "I'll keep it brief."
• Signature: name, role, one credential that's verifiable in 5 seconds
• Send time: Tues–Thurs, 6:45–7:30am local. Beats EA filtering windows at most large companies.
• Follow-up: one short bump 4 business days later. Never more than that to a CEO.

Free tools (Hunter free tier, RocketReach free tier) give you 25–50 lookups/month — fine for occasional one-offs. Once you're searching more than 100 CEO emails/month, the per-credit pricing of paid tiers crosses $99/mo. HuntMeLeads is flat at $29/mo with unlimited credits — the math flips around the 30-lookup mark.