Poor Succession Planning Causes High CEO Turnover at U.S. Firms
- About 1-in-8 CEOs of major companies leave within three years
- ‘The cost of an unplanned CEO transition is often very high’
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About 1 of every 8 chief executive officers at the biggest publicly traded U.S. firms leave within three years. Better succession planning could improve longevity and save shareholders billions of dollars.
That’s the conclusion of a white paper published Wednesday by executive search firm Russell Reynolds Associates, which found that 13 percent of CEOs at S&P 500 companies who served from 2003 through 2015 didn’t make it to their third work anniversaries. Of those hired externally, 17 percent left within three years.