The Great CEO Exodus… Continues

Rank-and-file workers and many top executives have looked at the current job market and decided to stay. But one group isn’t sticking around—and it happens to be the people holding the highest job.

According to a recent estimate, some 222 CEOs left their roles in January, the highest number for the month in at least 23 years. This comes after a record 2,221 top bosses—at US public, private, or government organizations—left their posts in 2024, a figure which itself topped the prior record of 1,914 set a year earlier. Some of these leaders are leaving of their own accord; others are being pushed out. But either way, “it’s truly a generational transition of leadership,” says Tierney Remick, Korn Ferry vice chairman and co-leader of its Board and CEO Services practice.

And the CEO exodus is likely to continue in 2025, experts say, despite the disruption it causes. Each of the past five years has had a unique, if not unprecedented, challenge for CEOs—in order, the pandemic, the pandemic recovery, the Great Resignation, inflation, a credit crunch, and now a major change in US government policies. That’s on top of the multitude of other so-called “breaking points” CEOs are facing, among them a combination of a slow-growth environment, empowered employees, and uncertainty around AI. "Disruption is a major cause of CEOs leaving, and then the CEO actually leaving is adding to that disruption,” says Andrés Tapia, a Korn Ferry senior client partner and diversity and inclusion strategist. “So it becomes a cycle of reinforcing disruption."

For her part, Jane Edison Stevenson, global vice chair and global leader of the Board and CEO Succession business at Korn Ferry, says that CEOs, as recently as a few years ago, could follow a playbook that no longer exists. “It was never easy, but the job is a lot harder now,” she says.

Many chief executives are getting heat from the boardroom as well. Directors, themselves under pressure from a surge in activist investors, are showing less patience with CEOs who aren’t delivering positive results, says Joe Griesedieck, vice chairman and managing director in Korn Ferry’s Board and CEO Services practice. Indeed, at one point in 2024, nearly 40% of CEOs who left were forced out. “This pressure will continue,” he says.

The reality of demographics—many public-company CEOs are at or near retirement age—makes experts worry that the departures will continue. Indeed, 28% of January’s CEO departures were retirements. And these days, stepping down doesn’t necessarily mean ending a career: A former chief executive can pivot to being a full-time board director or an investment advisor for private-equity firms—roles that are interesting, but often less stressful. “The emotional and physical drain, combined with the strategic challenges, has created a moment in time that they’re taking advantage of,” Remick says.

The surge in CEOs leaving contrasts starkly with the prevailing sense that the employment market is stagnant. The rate of employee separations—the percentage of people who quit, get fired, or otherwise leave their job each month—fell from 4.2% in January 2023 to 3.3% this past January, according to the most recent US government statistics. In particular, the number of people quitting has dropped to its lowest level in nearly a decade.

When a CEO quits, it’s almost always a shock to the system, says Alan Guarino, vice chairman in Korn Ferry’s Board and CEO Services practice. “All types of dynamics surface calling the success of the company’s future into question,” he notes. As a result, experts say that firms need to make a special effort to develop promising talent. These days, that may mean identifying potential successors who are currently working two or even three layers below the CEO job. Meanwhile, private firms are vacuuming up leaders from public organizations, Remick says, so there’s no guarantee that any one particular executive will be around—or ready—should the CEO position open up.

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