CEO turnover is accelerating in 2025—and it’s not primarily triggered by poor corporate performance. New research from The Conference Board, Egon Zehnder, and Semler Brossy finds that high-performing organizations are now nearly as likely to undergo a CEO transition as underperforming ones. In 2025, turnover among S&P 500 CEOs in the top three performance quartiles (measured by total shareholder return) came in at 12%, nearly matching bottom-quartile performers (14%). This marks a stark shift from the previous year, when the gap between the two cohorts was 7% versus 18%. At the same time, CEO departures are rising. The succession rate climbed to 12.5% in 2025*, up from a historic low of 9.8% in 2024 and 12.2% in 2023. While part of this reflects a return to historical norms, it also stems from persistent macroeconomic volatility, shifting leadership skill requirements, and an increase in externally hired CEOs. Notably, the rate of forced exits declined to 15.2% from 16.3% in 2024—the first drop since 2020—suggesting that most transitions are not reactions to crisis or underperformance. They are opportunistic actions by boards to proactively address succession. Taken together, these trends indicate a shift at high- and low-performing firms alike. For the most forward-looking organizations, this shift might represent a fundamental change in how boards of directors are approaching leadership continuity. In 2025, boards may have been able to use CEO succession not only as a corrective measure, but in many cases as a strategic lever to better prepare companies for a rapidly changing and unpredictable future shaped by groundbreaking technologies, upended geopolitical norms, and evolving stakeholder pressures. Factors Influencing Recent Trends in CEO Succession The rapid change, volatility, and unpredictability that companies have faced in 2025 has influenced succession plans in nuanced and interlocking ways: Previously deferred CEO transitions are being completed. The recent rise in departures reflects both natural leadership cycles ending and the implementation of deferred transitions. In 2024, the average tenure of departing CEOs was 7.4 years—a record low—as long-serving leaders postponed exits to steward companies through post-pandemic volatility and macroeconomic uncertainty. In 2025, the average tenure of departing CEOs rose to 9.3 years (median = 8 years) as these leaders completed their long-planned transitions. Because many of these CEOs were seasoned, successful executives at high-performing firms, their departures elevated overall turnover rates in the upper performance quartiles. Market volatility is being treated as the “new normal.” While boards over the last several years justifiably delayed succession plans to offer stability amid uncertainty, organizations can no longer afford to pause leadership transitions while waiting for the environment to stabilize. Many boards are now acknowledging that today’s increasingly complex operating environment marked by AI transformation, elevated market uncertainty, and regulatory shifts is the new normal, and not a passing phase of disruption. As such, transitions are being considered as ways to better prepare companies to handle the volatility and take advantage of rapidly changing opportunities rather than trying to “ride it out.” Boards are looking externally for new CEOs more frequently. The recognition of this “new normal” has also caused boards to reassess what leadership capabilities are needed to meet the evolving demands of the top job and if those capabilities exist in-house. External appointments in the S&P 500 nearly doubled to 32.7% in 2025, dropping internal promotions below 70% for the first time in eight years. This data may indicate an increased focus on bringing in fresh perspectives to handle novel problems or transformative efforts, versus a reliance on tried-and-true experience gained in-house. How Boards Can Lead Stronger Transitions Since succession planning can be a lever to support and drive strategy, not just a reaction to CEO exits, boards can take the following steps to ensure their leadership transitions become more intentional and proactive. In this way, each succession can strengthen long-term performance, stability, and stakeholder confidence. Make succession planning an ongoing process. Ideally, succession planning should be integrated into risk oversight, strategy/talent reviews, and annual evaluations, rather than viewed as a one-off event. In 2025, interim appointments accounted for 14.9% of S&P 500 successions. This is down from 20.4% in 2024, but still above 2020-2023 levels (7.3%-14.8%). To minimize reactive turnover and avoid disruptions, boards should create predefined interim and emergency arrangements. This means conducting regular readiness assessments of potential successors and linking potential scenarios to enterprise-risk, crisis management, and transformation plans. Boards should also ensure their committees are more engaged as stewards in the entire succession process by formally incorporating succession planning principles into governance guidelines or charters and setting aside time to discuss succession issues more regularly in meetings. Strengthen internal pipelines while staying open to external talent. Though external hiring is on the rise, internal promotions still make up more than two-thirds of all CEO appointments. Integrating next-gen leadership development into long-term strategy reviews helps prepare internal candidates before transitions become urgent, all while enabling companies to build out deeper benches that can step up no matter where present volatility evolves. For example, at one large consumer goods company, the compensation committee reserves time in every quarterly agenda to review next-generation leadership development. The committee discusses development areas, career pathing, and readiness metrics for high-potential executives, ensuring the pipeline for future CEO and C-Suite roles is actively cultivated rather than reactive. Another organization has formalized mentorship connections between directors and senior executives two or three levels below the CEO, giving the board early exposure to internal talent and helping emerging leaders better understand board expectations and leadership scope. And as part of its holistic and ongoing CEO succession plan, a multinational, large-cap organization undertakes an annual mapping of external “ready now” and “ready soon” potential CEO talent, and projected CEO transitions in its industry. This provides an up-to-date view of opportunity in the external talent landscape, as well as a view of the organizations that may be looking to recruit their own senior leadership away for their own CEO roles. Regardless of an intent to promote internally vs. hire externally, strategic boards maintain an awareness of the talent pool in their industry as well as any CEO and C-Suite transitions across the broader market. Doing so will help better understand the opportunities and risks other companies’ transitions might offer to their own organization. Reconsider if current CEO profiles best address persistent volatility. To ensure future CEOs are equipped for tomorrow’s challenges—not yesterday’s benchmarks—boards may want to update CEO competency frameworks annually. This framework should emphasize agility, stakeholder management, and digital fluency over tenure or traditional operating experience. Some firms are adopting scenario-based evaluations, while others are leveraging assessment of future growth potential to understand candidates’ ability to lead through disruptions rather than focusing on historical metrics alone. The Challenge Ahead: Embedding Consistency, Foresight, and Clear Communication In periods of volatility, CEO changes can signal both accountability and renewal. That said, there may still be cases where the initial perception of a CEO exit is an admission of “failure.” To avoid misinterpretation and instill stakeholder confidence, boards should frame transitions as a critical part of a long-term strategic plan and smart adaptation to uncertainty. This may entail pairing transition announcements with clear messaging about governance continuity and oversight and linking CEO compensation to transition incentives and shifting strategic goals. In an era defined by disruption, many of the most proactive and strategic organizations have re-contextualized the objectives of CEO succession from a reactive correction into a strategic renewal. The next stage is to build out consistency. Boards that embed succession discipline into the fabric of governance can establish a culture where every transition reinforces corporate strategy, strengthens oversight, and instills stakeholder confidence. Successfully institutionalizing continuous succession planning positions boards to encourage long-term value creation and shareholder trust for generations to come. *Author’s Note: Data for the current year is annualized based on succession announcements disclosed on SEC Form 8-K. Data cited in this article is sourced from CEO Succession Practices in the Russell 3000 and S&P 500: 2025 Edition, which draws on data from ESGAUGE.
