Quitting ain’t just for workers
Bosses are joining the Great Reshuffle put in motion by the pandemic, according to Axios. The number of chief executives signing onto new public companies in markets around the world jumped to 76 in the first half of the year — the most by far since executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles began keeping record in 2018.
Other findings of the report:
The new CEOs are more likely to be women and from outside the country where the company is domiciled.
They’re also more likely to have experience other than the typical feeder roles of CFO and COO feeder.
Excerpt from Axios by Kate Marino
CEOs, like the workforce at large, delayed their job quitting plans in the chaos of 2020. Now they’re making up for lost time, and are just as much a part of the Great Resignation as their employees, a report out today from executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles shows.
Why it matters: The latest class of CEOs will help lead the world through a host of thorny modern issues — like cybersecurity, sustainability and digital transformation.
Driving the news: In the first half of 2021, 76 CEOs were appointed at the 1,095 largest public companies from 14 countries. That’s a record for any six-month period since the report's authors began tracking.
What they found: The new top leaders are more likely than their predecessors to be women, and to be from countries other than where the company is headquartered.
They’re also more likely to have experience beyond the traditional CFO and COO feeder roles, in a sign that boards are willing to expand the definition of what qualifies a candidate for the role.
The bottom line: “The top job, like so many others, has been altered by the rapid changes that have taken place over the last 18 months," said Jeff Sanders, co-managing partner of Heidrick & Struggles' CEO & board of directors practice.
"[B]oards and organizations are taking a more expansive view in their CEO succession planning,” he said.
