CEO Exits Are a Growing Issue. How Can You Stem the Tide?

CEOs are departing their roles at record rates, across the United States and globally — and it’s not looking like the barrage of changeovers will throttle down anytime soon.

This upsurge may serve as a wake-up call for organizations who have recently lost a CEO or have a leader with one foot out the door — as well as those who see the writing on the wall and want to ensure they’re doing everything possible to retain a valued executive.

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An Upswing of Executive Switchovers

In January, 222 CEOs exited their roles at U.S. companies, the highest January CEO migration since executive outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas started tracking such moves more than two decades ago. A total of 2,221 U.S. CEOs left their roles in 2024, an annual record — up from 1,914 exits in 2023, also a record year.

An analysis of the world’s largest companies by management consulting firm Russell Reynolds Associates found a similar trend. The number of CEOs leaving their roles in 2024 reached its highest point in six years, with CEO turnover in S&P 500 companies increasing 21% from the year before and tech companies seeing the most dramatic turnover rate — 90% higher than 2023.

Some of these leaders retired; others were removed from the organization’s top spot due to investor pressure, private equity bankruptcies, low performance or other factors; still others left on their own accord. Whatever the impetus, the profusion of CEO exits is likely to continue into 2025, said Roger Philby, a senior client partner and global lead for people strategy and performance at Korn Ferry.

Why is this happening now? CEOs who have led organizations through the past several years are mired in a slurry of significant governmental policy change, recent inflation, and the residual effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and Great Resignation — not to mention the relentless whiplash of technological advancements.

“The pressure valve following COVID has just been broken, and CEOs are the first to feel it,” Philby said. “The role has gone from demanding to, post-COVID, nearly impossible. It’s not just delivering earnings. You’re expected to be a technologist, a diplomat, a politician, a futurist, a moral compass and a cultural guru. Oh, and you’ve got to be an incredible presenter, enigmatic and charismatic, all at once, in real time.”

Where Does Total Rewards Come In?

Preventing or responding to CEO departures starts with remembering the executives are human, said Don King, a vice president and the head of total rewards at management technology and consulting firm Businessolver.

Mental health challenges often plague organizations’ top leaders. In 2024, 55% of CEOs said they had a mental health issue such as anxiety, depression, loneliness, burnout or obsessive-compulsive disorder — a 24-point increase from 2023, according to Businessolver’s annual State of Workplace Empathy report.

“I don’t think we pause long enough to see that CEOs are real people with families, as well,” King said. “Many believe, and rightfully so, that CEOs are driven, visionary, hardcore, ‘take-the-hill’ leaders. But, at the end of the day, they have their own struggles and stresses, too. Organizations need to recognize this fact and show empathy to those real human challenges.”

Avoid painting every chief executive departure with the same brush, said Kevin Tamanini, the vice president of professional services at leadership consulting firm DDI. Understanding a CEO’s reasons for leaving (for instance, DDI found 40% of leaders have considered leaving their roles to reduce stress) can be telling for an organization.

“We know the number-one reason people leave organizations is because of their leader — what does that mean for a CEO?” Tamanini said. “Total rewards professionals should take more time to conduct exit interviews and gather data to determine the factors, beyond monetary compensation, that are the key drivers for CEOs. Creating broad strategies for a very unique role is an approach that could be missing the mark.”

When an organization does undergo a CEO transition, the best navigation will come from those who have been paving the road for some time so an exiting chief executive does not leave a vacuum, Philby said. He cited Apple as an example of an organization that propelled to even greater success after the resignation and subsequent death of Steve Jobs, a CEO many “deemed irreplaceable.”

“Those companies have created leadership as a system, not a hero,” Philby said. “They decentralize decision-making, continuously develop their talent bench and ensure the culture isn’t about one person. When leadership is a shared capability, not a burden on a single person, transitions become moments of strategic opportunity, not panic.”

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