Green’s Dictionary of Slang

an executive (of a firm or business); occas. as adj.

1896		G.B. Shaw Letter 20 Mar. in Coll. Letters: 1874–1897 (1965) 614: The Execs will be safe, I should think, to sanction the expenditure .
1918		‘Commander’ Clear the Decks! 87: The Exec. and Chief were only a few classes senior to Migg.
1938		W. Winchell On Broadway 25 May [synd. col.] Business [...] will take a sharp upswing . . . Although Republican biz execs expect it sooner.
1941		B. Schulberg What Makes Sammy Run? (1992) 36: One of the Monarch execs must have just got the idea of rounding up all the drama columnists in New York.
1952		J. Jones From Here to Eternity (1998) 383: This Brigadier was a sort of exec officer to the Brigade.
1952		W. Sheldon Troubling of a Star 187: The chubby exec looked up.
1960		E. De Roo Big Rumble 82: This is an execs’ meet. No heaters allowed.
1961		Mad mag. July 48: You two are the top candidates for that Account Exec opening we got!
1972		Milner & Milner Black Players 258: I was in a club on Geary Street the other night which is considered the legal exec type thing.
1985		E. Leonard Glitz 354: Very tight with the exec, you understand, had worked for him before.
1999		Indep. Mag. 17 July 18: The ad execs at table five are groping the waitress.
2000		T. Blacker Kill Your Darlings 286: Coke-brained film exec, scurfy critic, sneering resentful writer.
2000		Indep. Rev. 7 Jan. 4: To shocked film execs Brando elaborated ‘I don’t mean a bagel [...]’.