CEOs are being replaced on boards at a faster rate than at any time in the last 20 years, many of which can set off a chain reaction that can ripple through the C-suite for months or even years. CEO tenures continue to shrink, activist campaigns increasingly target top executives, and boards become less willing to wait for turnaround plans to bear fruit. What appears to be a single leadership change often begins a much larger reshuffle across the organization.
Global CEO departures will reach 234 in 2025, the highest level Russell Reynolds has tracked in the index's past eight years, up 16% from 2024 and 21% above the eight-year average. The average tenure of CEOs globally decreased from 8.3 years in 2021 to 7.1 years in 2025. The percentage of CEOs retiring within 30 to 36 months of appointment increased by 79% year over year.
In other words, boards are making decisions much faster than before.
Ten years ago, it was common for boards to appoint a new CEO several years before making a decision. Boards are now dominated by institutional investors, many of whom are shaped by the performance expectations of fast-growing technology companies. Economic instability, interest rate pressures, and a business cycle compressed by AI have further shortened that period. Chief marketing officer tenures are following a similar pattern, decreasing from 4.3 years in 2024 to about four years for S&P 500 companies. At high-growth companies and privately held tech companies, the squeeze is even greater, with the CMO's tenure sometimes reaching nearly 18 months, the shortest of all executive roles.
Activist campaigns will reach 255 worldwide in 2025, surpassing the previous record of 249 in 2018. In the US, 141 campaigns were launched, an increase of 23% from the previous year. Thirty-two CEOs resigned within a year of the activist movement, 60 percent higher than the four-year average. 18% of all activist campaigns in the US in 2025 directly followed CEO departures, an increase of 38% compared to the previous four-year average. Activist filings, M&A announcements, and financial results announcements tend to precede executive changes, often well before the departure becomes public.
Only 21% of organizations have a formal CEO succession plan in place. Only 37% of large companies in the United States and Canada have regular, formal succession planning at the CEO or direct report level, and more than half of those plans include fewer than two candidates. Most boards begin serious succession negotiations just 12 to 18 months before the planned transition, and only 8% plan more than five years ahead. Nearly half of private company directors say their boards would not be prepared to identify a successor if their CEO resigned tomorrow.
Staying in touch with clients between engagements, tracking changes within the client's organization, and keeping a mental list of who is ready to fill roles that don't yet exist is common in most long-term client relationships in executive search. Rather than being priced as a service, this is built into the cost of your business and is done at no additional charge. Too many executive search firms are still organized around filling vacancies one at a time, and much of the work associated with vacancies goes unclaimed.
Greg Foran was appointed CEO of Kroger in February 2026 following an investigation that began after Rodney McMullen abruptly resigned amid a board investigation in early 2025. Within months of Mr. Foran's appointment, four senior executives left the company: the chief associate experience officer, the senior vice president of retail, the global vice president of Kroger's capability center, and another senior vice president of retail who left to become chief operating officer at another company. One board decision led to at least five executive changes over an 18-month period, including the CEO role itself.
In most cases, a new CEO reorganizes the management team within two years. External CEO hires, who tend to hire their own talent, will nearly double their share of new S&P 500 CEOs in 2025, reaching the highest external hire rate in eight years. The proportion of internal promotions in CEO appointments has fallen below 70% for the first time in eight years.
Recurring digital revenue from Korn Ferry's talent analytics, psychological assessments, and succession planning tools represents approximately 35% of total fee revenue and is growing at approximately 11% annually. More than 83 percent of Korn Ferry's assignments in fiscal 2025 came from customers served by the company in the previous three years. Meanwhile, Heidrick & Struggles recorded a 16.6% year-over-year increase in consulting revenue in Q2 2025. This is faster than the company's core search revenue growth over the same period. The companies are using this revenue to operate alongside, rather than in place of, their core search businesses.
But despite these examples, most search companies still struggle to capture that value. The reason is structural. The client-candidate relationship in executive search is often personal to the individual recruiter rather than the company. A 16-year relationship with a client can end at a time when recruiters need years to consider background and think about succession.
Successor intelligence retention, ongoing relationship fees, or advisory agreements that are priced independently of a specific search give clients a reason to maintain the agreement between employment cycles. Tracking activist filings, M&A activity, and leadership announcements as triggers for outreach turns relationship building from a passive habit to an active practice.
While executive turnover can fluctuate from year to year, the baseline is changing. The composition of institutional boards, financial incentives for activists, compressed performance windows, etc. are not conditions that will naturally lead to reversal. Companies that recognize the value already built into succession intelligence, relationship continuity, and year-round customer engagement are doing more than they could ever get from referral fees alone.
