Can a CEO and Chairman be the same person for a publicly held company?

I don't know , sorry

No.

A Chairman can hold the position of Executive Chairman but not of a CEO. A CEO or Managing Director can be appointed by the Chairman with delegated powers to run a Business Unit independently within the Group Companies. Such appointments are generally target based with respect to profitability, revenues, market share etc and are on short to medium term. In case the targets are not achieved, the CEO is replaced by another CEO.  

It depends on the local law of the country and the regulation of the regulatory authorities.So, you have to refer to your local laws and regulatuon of regulatory authorities.

I am sorry . I am not sure about other countries  but the Indian company law does not allow this.

Personally I think  the chairman or the managing director  should not be the Chief Executive Officer. A limited company is a very powerful entity. It has to look after the interest of thousands of shareholders, creditors, banks, customers and suppliers. If the CEO has all the powers and unquestionable authority it is a very dangerous situation.

As the saying goes. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. It would make a pubic company work like a family owned business or worse a Sole Proprietorship.

Probably Not! The Chairman & the CEO should always be two different people based on best practices.What is the exact purpose of the Board? To provide a stretegic vision to the company. And in order to achieve that it is ideal that the Board works independently. Now, if the Chairman & CEO are the same person there are definately going to be clashes within the Board as well as the senior management of the company. No wonder the Audit Committe reports directly to the Board.

We MUST b honest with each other , any thing can happen and take place in the bussniess filed , but the accurate answer can't be , but in any filed you can expact the unexpacted to happen.

I think it's two different role. I think there is no restriction for a person to act as Chairman cum CEO however generally we can see both are two different individuals in most of the cases.

Chairman is the head of the Board for the meetings.CEO is the executive head of the company reporting to the MD/Board.There may be conflict  of interest in the roles.So CEO and Chairman cannot be one and the same person.