Board Focus: Directors Feeling Heat from CEO Exits

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Ask board directors what their most important job is, and chances are they’ll say managing, hiring, or retaining a CEO. But many of them probably didn’t think they’d be doing these things as much as they are today.

A rash of CEO departures may be making all the headlines, but behind the scenes, it’s corporate directors who are left to deal with the damage. In the normal course of their work, directors are duty bound to line up orderly succession plans. Today, they may find themselves in a pressure cooker, racing to assure shareholders, activist investors, and employees that leadership is strong and solid. “The happy hour for boards is over,” says Kate Shattuck, a Korn Ferry managing partner. “They have to be nose in, fingers out.” 

Not long ago, boards could safely assume a chief would stay for about a decade—giving them plenty of time to line up smooth successions. But last year, a record number of CEOs left their roles, and the pace has continued in 2025, with 220 leaving in January. That was the highest figure for the month in more than two decades. Few believe that the rate of departures will slow anytime soon.

This exodus, experts say, actually started around the pandemic, when the CEO job changed for reasons that include economic uncertainty and the pressures of handling a remote workforce. And when the pandemic subsided, the pressures didn’t: Inflation was raging, and a surge in activist investors tested boards’ patience with the top leader. At one point last year, nearly 40% of CEOs who left were forced out. It’s no wonder the average CEO tenure now hovers around 7.2 years. “The tenure of a CEO is permanently shorter, and people are ready to be done sooner,” says Jane Edison Stevenson, global vice chair of Korn Ferry's Board and CEO Services practice and global leader of its Board and CEO Succession practice. 

As signs point to top-job turnover continuing, boards must begin to rethink their succession plans. To start, directors can conceptualize the leadership pipeline as a chessboard rather than a checkerboard. “It’s hard enough to find a single option for a CEO, so it’s daunting to consider multiple options,” Stevenson says. “But if you want the best odds and the best outcomes, that’s what boards need to do.” 

A multidimensional approach means putting succession on the agenda at regular governance-committee meetings and expanding the search for potential successors to two to three layers down from the top level. It’s also wise to have an emergency plan ready—something akin to a phone-tree strategy—so everyone knows their role if the CEO abruptly departs. “The biggest failure is when a board member has to step in, even on an interim basis,” says Joe Griesedieck, vice chairman and managing director in Korn Ferry’s Board and CEO Services practice. 

Of course, the ideal scenario is to retain a CEO who’s performing well. That responsibility typically falls on the board chairman (if the chair isn’t the CEO) or the independent director who serves as the bridge between the board and the chief executive. “Those two should be talking all the time,” Griesedieck says. “That director should have the trust of the CEO and vice versa, and any discussions regarding succession should come as no surprise.”

Boards also need to remember that CEOs need to be developed—even when they’ve been in the role for awhile. “Are they motivated by money or by personal goals, or by wanting to sit on a board?” Shattuck asks. “It’s important to have those conversations on an ongoing basis—particularly if the CEO has been in the position for more than five years.” Because people leave managers, not companies, as the saying goes—and that includes CEOs. 

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