Hello, Goodbye

Management turnover was way up in 2006. Exec-level churn—from directors down to VPs—rose 68% in 2006, to 28,058 changes. CEOs came and went at a 30% higher rate. CFO churn rose 23%. The drug/biotech industry saw the most CEO and CFO turnover. In biotech, these posts are often filled first by people able to handle "the initial development of the company," says Richard Jacovitz, a senior vice-president at Liberum Research, which did the study using SEC filings and press releases of North American publicly traded companies. But as biotech firms enter the marketing phase, he says, many "need a different sort of talent."

By Lindsey Gerdes