Latest news with #CEOturnover
Skift
26-06-2025
- Business
- Skift
CEO Turnover Hits Record High – That Means More Corporate Events
A wave of CEO turnover is creating new demand for in-person gatherings. From leadership summits to town halls, companies are convening under new leadership. CEOs are stepping down in record numbers, and every change is generating strategy sessions, town halls, and offsites that are boosting the corporate events industry. In the first quarter of 2025 alone, 646 CEOs exited their roles. A historic high, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas. At this pace, the year could mark the highest turnover rate in more than two decades. 'New CEOs must bring their people together,' said Michael Dominguez, president and CEO of Associated Luxury Hotels International. 'There are town halls, strategy meetings, leadership meetings. Often, they will also bring in consultants to craft strategies that drive more meetings. Clients will also be brought together, especially if the CEO is unknown to the group.' The impact on the events industry is already visible. After Brian Niccol was named CEO of Starbucks in September 2024, the coffee chain hosted its largest leadership event ever. In June, more than 14,000 store leaders gathered in Las Vegas for the Starbucks Leadership Experience, its first major leadership conference since 2019. Hyundai Motor Company moved quickly after a leadership change. José Muñoz became president and CEO on January 1, and one of his first major acts was convening more than 800 employees for a town hall to outline the vision for the future. At Ulta Beauty, newly appointed CEO Kecia Steelman represented the company at J.P. Morgan's Annual Retail Round Up Conference in April. Antonio Filosa, the new CEO of Stellantis, the world's fourth-largest automaker, is also prioritizing in-person gatherings. He is bringing together executives from the company's 14 brands for a leadership gathering in Amsterdam in early July. The pattern isn't limited to major global corporations. 'Small to medium-sized businesses make up 70% of the economy,' said Dominguez. 'They may not be having meetings at the scale of Starbucks, but they too are gathering key stakeholders.' These Aren't One-Off CEO Events These meetings will not be one-and-done. 'The cycle of gatherings will continue as they change how their businesses are run focusing on technology, efficiencies, and AI,' said Dominguez. 'Plus the aggressive moves back to offices and campuses will require more time together to work through the disruption.' 'A surge in meetings following the shake-up in CEO leadership reveals a dynamic shift in strategy and vision,' said Simone Seiler, global general manager, FCM Meetings & Events. 'Organizations are using in-person interactions to ride the waves of change.' Whether leading thousands or hundreds, new CEOs are leaning into the power of in-person meetings to chart the course ahead, and that's keeping event venues, planners, and suppliers busy.
Forbes
23-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
The Successful CEO In A World Of Uncertainty
Concept for success. Given today's global economic and geostrategic uncertainty, its small wonder CEO turnover, which reached record heights in 2024, continues into 2025*. Managing company and industry risk effectively is increasingly difficult in the midst of major exogenous forces destabilizing the business environment critical to success. As Peter Drucker used to say, the root cause of crisis in every organization is when the assumptions on which the enterprise was built and run no longer fit reality. Surely those assumptions about markets, customers, competitors, and technology are now compounded by greater geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty than at any time in the last half century. It would be hard to argue that the assumptions on which most business were built and run are not today in a major state of flux. So the need for CEOs to have dynamic strategic foresight tools to help discern these changes and, to the extent possible, get out ahead of them, is critical to their success. From my extensive interaction with CEOs around the world these days I see three fundamentally different ways CEOs are reacting to these changing assumptions. These different ways of responding to the new global business environment will in large measure, determine whether or not they can succeed, and hence, their longevity. The first group of CEOs I would call 'delusional'. They are clinging on to old realities because that's what they know, are comfortable with, and require the least amount of change. I recall vividly delivering a paper in Davos in 2016 in which I asserted that we were moving from 'globalization to islandization'. But most in the audience clung onto the notion that at best, globalization and integration had reached a bump in the road, believing that globalization was inevitable, immutable and irreversible. Now, nine years later, we know nothing could be further from reality. The second group of CEOs I would call 'mesmerized'. They see dramatic change, challenges and complexity, but they are content to admire the fire. They are either unwilling to change or are frozen in place waiting for the proverbial fog of war to lift and hoping for a return to the status quo ante. The third group of CEOs, and the ones most likely to succeed in a world of continuous, convulsive change, I would call the 'agile'. They are willing to ask the critical questions and put in place strategic foresight and risk management capabilities, as well as rely on a network of informed advisors (which should include their Board of Directors), to provide the peripheral vision needed to be competitive. They establish a dynamic strategy around which they improvise guided by a sophisticated system to monitor early warning signs for changes in their planning assumptions compelling a change in direction. The successful CEO, able to navigate in these chronically uncertain waters, needs also to double down on developing a corporate culture at all levels of the enterprise able to keep their collective ears to the railroad track, monitoring new forces of change potentially affecting corporate operations and competitiveness. As Peter Drucker would say, 'culture eats strategy for breakfast every morning'. Too much attention, often understandably driven by shareholder and financial analyst anxiety, is being placed on the lagging indicators of current performance. Surely good current performance is an indicator of corporate health but largely tells us what a company did six months or even years before that which has yielded current financial performance. More importantly, the successful CEO focuses corporate attention on the leading indicators of likely future performance. This future-focused attention is critically important when the future business conditions are evolving and shifting rapidly. Finally, in this chronically complex and volatile world the temptation in the C-suite is to avoid communicating with stakeholders in the absence of certainty. But some degree of volatility and uncertainty is likely to be steady state as far as the eye can see. This is not an excuse to fail to communicate. In fact, in this environment, the successful CEO communicates more frequently and broadly than ever, authentically sharing their own anxiety, but importantly also informing their stakeholders that corporate strategy is well-tuned to changing direction as conditions might demand. Rather than unsettling employees, shareholders, financial analysts, the CEO who demonstrates an appreciation for business environment volatility accompanied by agile planning and risk management protocols will reassure key stakeholders. In this world of uncertainty, the agile CEO is more likely to succeed than their delusional or mesmerized competitors.
Globe and Mail
11-06-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
The problem with new leaders using an ‘out-with-the-old' approach
Brooke Struck is the founder and principal facilitator at Converge, which supports organizations through strategic and cultural transformation. Mike James Ross is the co-author of 'Intention: The Surprising Psychology of High Performers', former CHRO at La Maison Simons and current board member and executive advisor. A promise of light in the dark… The year 2024 set a record for CEO turnover, according to leadership advisory firm Russell Reynolds Associates, and 2025 looks like it'll be even worse. Often, a replacement executive is brought in as organizations move through natural phases. To draw an analogy to mountain climbing, reaching base camp and reaching the summit are two different phases, each with a separate skillset and each necessary to reach the ultimate goal. However, when there's a leadership change, it is all too easy for the incoming executive to lean into a convenient narrative: 'The old way of doing things doesn't cut it and that's why we need to change.' The logic of this is as attractive as it is simple – and dangerous. The urgency to adopt the new is driven by the inadequacy of the old. An executive stepping into a new role might initially have the intention to 'spend the first 45 days listening,' but once they arrive on the job and begin feeling the pressure to quickly demonstrate value, the idea of 'out with the old and in with the new' can be appealing as a lever to drive better results now. … which turns out to be a trap In vilifying the past, you run two important risks: First, while some part of how we've operated surely needs to change, this narrative completely ignores many other parts actually work well. Consider a 185-year-old company like La Maison Simons. Companies simply don't thrive and flourish for two centuries (or even two decades) without getting a lot of things right. By vilifying the past wholesale, we're casting shade too widely. Second, in criticizing processes it's perilously easy to disparage people as well. Our intention as leaders is to motivate our teams to change, but we can easily demotivate them if our words sound to them like, 'You were incompetent and doing it all wrong.' The longer way 'round is the shorter way home. While not as simple, a more effective storyline around change is one that demonstrates the continuity of past, present and future. This is especially true in older organizations with rich histories. By celebrating what came before and recognizing that it was necessary to get us where we are now, we can focus our attention with enthusiasm and excitement on the potential of what is to come. There are three elements that we've seen work in practice. Finally, here are three questions we've found helpful to keep leaders aligned during this process. By combining these approaches and mindsets, we've seen stronger commitment to change, better continuity and greater opportunities for leadership to shine across many organizations. Given that we're all living in a world that requires constant change, being anchored in what worked well can make all the difference. This column is part of Globe Careers' Leadership Lab series, where executives and experts share their views and advice about the world of work. Find all Leadership Lab stories at and guidelines for how to contribute to the column here.
