CEO Succession

The CEO Succession Study

Every year, Booz & Company takes an intensive look at CEO turnover among the world’s top 2,500 public companies. Our research now reaches back to 2000, giving us over a decade of perspective on the tenure and job functions of these global business leaders. Annually, we consider a new dimension of transition and change, looking deeply into such topics as the evolution of corporate governance practices, the special pressures on new CEOs, or the role of the corporate core and its effect on tenure and turnover.

Since its inception, the study has included an analysis by both geography and industry. It also looks at major trends with respect to CEO succession over time: the predominance of company insiders taking the top job, the split of the CEO and chairman roles, and the growth of the apprentice model, in which the new CEO’s predecessor assumes the job of board chairman.

The study looks at the world’s 2,500 largest public companies as measured by their market capitalization. The analysis of this data set — as a byproduct — illustrates the gradual migration of the largest companies from the mature economies of the United States, Canada, Western Europe, and Japan to emerging economies. If this pattern continues, within a few years the companies in the world’s mature Western economies could represent a minority of our sample.

Our CEO Succession study has been mentioned in more than 200 publications in over 25 countries, including the Financial Times, The Economist, and The Wall Street Journal, making Booz & Company the foremost authority on governance trends.

2010: The Four Types of CEOs
Booz & Company’s annual study of turnover among chief executives — now increasingly diverse, as the world’s largest companies migrate to emerging economies — suggests that the nature of the job varies with the role of the corporate core.Download the 2010 CEO Succession study (904kb, PDF) >

2000-2009: A Decade of Convergence and Compression
Booz & Company analysis of 10 consecutive years’ worth of detailed data on CEO turnover shows that the tenure of a CEO is becoming shorter and more intense, the margin for error or underperformance is narrow, and increasingly, CEOs no longer hold the chairman's seat in the boardroom.Download the 2000-2009 CEO Succession study (677kb, PDF) >

2008: Stability in the Storm
Facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, corporate boards in North America and Europe are holding fast to their current CEOs, finds management consulting firm Booz & Company in its 2008 annual survey of CEO turnover. The decline in succession rates in these two regions contrasts with the slight rise in chief executive departures globally. The financial services and energy sectors, most affected by the turmoil of 2008, saw outsized increases in CEO exits spurred not only by performance, but also by government interventions and volatility in commodity markets, respectively.Download the 2008 CEO Succession study (373kb, PDF) >

2007: The Performance Paradox
One of today’s most pervasive criticisms of corporate behavior is that boards of directors are driven above all else by the stock market’s demands for short-term gains. As a result, they don’t give chief executive officers enough time to develop and implement long-term strategies that will drive sustained performance. New CEOs, the story goes, have two years to boost earnings per share — three if they’re lucky — before their impatient boards give them the ax. The problem with this story is that it’s not true. The facts, garnered from this year's study, suggest the opposite.Download the 2007 CEO Succession study (249kb, PDF) >

CEO Succession 2006: The Era of the Inclusive Leader
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As turnover levels off, our annual CEO succession study shows chief executives and their boards adopting new survival strategies.

CEO Succession 2005: The Crest of the Wave
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Half of all chief executives are dismissed from office, but those who can deliver results are in greater demand than ever.

CEO Succession 2004: The World's Most Prominent Temp Workers
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With forced turnover up 300 percent since 1995, business has entered the era of the short-term chief.

CEO Succession 2003: The Perils of "Good" Governance
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Pressured by shareholders, boards are humbling once-imperial CEOs — in ways that may contribute to lower returns, our annual study finds.

CEO Succession 2002: Deliver or Depart
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Performance-related dismissals are up and board tolerance is down at large companies around the world, our annual study finds.

CEO Succession 2001: Why CEOs Fall: The Causes and Consequences of Turnover at the Top
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An exclusive study of the world’s 2,500 largest companies shows CEO succession has increased by 53 percent in just the last six years. The reason: shareholders want returns now.