Fillable Printable CEO Succession Planning Template
Fillable Printable CEO Succession Planning Template
CEO Succession Planning Template
CEO Succession Planning
Presentation by: David Larcker, Professor, Stanford University Graduate
School of Business and Director of the Rock Center for
Corporate Governance
Stephen Miles, Vice Chairman, Heidrick & Struggles
CEO Succession Planning
A Dose of Reality…
Overview
► Risk management has become an especially critical
(perhaps new) focus for firms
► Succession planning and internal talent development is a
fundamental component of risk management
► Investors, rating agencies and governmental entities are
starting to request (proprietary) information about
succession planning
► Succession planning and internal talent development
translates directly into future shareholder/stakeholder
value
Assessment of Succession Planning
Internal Talent Pool for CEO
Internal Talent Pool for C-Level
Executives
Benchmarking the Internal Talent Pool
What Should the Next CEO Look Like?
Find another just like
the one we have?
OR
Find someone that is
completely different
from what we have!
What Should the Next CEO Look Like?
CEO Succession Planning
Compliance-Based versus Operational
Dangerous Myths Surrounding
Succession Planning
► External candidates are more exciting and promising
― Boards prefer the devil they don’t know to the devil they do
― Internal successors are often lower risk that outsiders
► The successor has to be ready now
― The only way to know if someone is “ready now” is after the fact
― The board must evaluate the context of the leadership situation
► CEO succession planning is a single-person event
― Boards focus on the CEO role in succession planning to the exclusion of other
positions
► What worked in the past will work in the future
― What a company needs in the future may be drastically different from what was
needed in the past
― Examples: Jamie Dimon and Bill Harrison at JPMorgan Chase; Marius Kloppers
and Charles Goodyear at BHP Billiton
► “We have a great internal candidate – we don’t need to look outside”
― A company cannot be myopically focused on its own people
