Legal Question in Business Law in California

Yes. No.

Officers are not necessarily share holders/owners. That's up to you and the negotiations depending on the value and experience of the prospective officer. Regards. Bob Worth

You can hire any employee you like. Officers are employees. It is up to you if you also make them shareholders.

I agree that the answers are "yes" and "no" (in California) to your two questions. Officers are, however, a bit more than "mere" employees in that they are presumed to have certain authority to act in ways that will bind the company. For example, if you make someone a vice president, a landlord could assume he was authorized to sign a lease for office space, and the company would be bound thereby. In some states (not California) corporate directors must own at least a token amount of corporate stock. I have never heard of any requirement that officers own stock, nor does naming someone a corporate officer automatically make them an owner.

The fact that someone is a corporate officer alone does not mean that person has an ownership in a corporation. Ownership in a corporation is manifested by owning the shares of stock that form the corporation. But I could not advise you further without reviewing your corporate by laws and articles of incorporation.