Key Takeaways
- More than 2,200 CEOs stepped down in 2024, a 16% increase over the prior year and the highest total on record, with Q1 2025 setting yet another quarterly record at 622 departures (Challenger, Gray & Christmas)
- Average outgoing CEO tenure fell to 7.1 years globally in 2025, down from 8.3 years in 2021, with H1 2025 averaging just 6.8 years - the lowest since tracking began
- CFO turnover reached 15.1% globally in 2024, higher than the CEO six-year average of roughly 11%, with 316 CFO appointments in 2025 marking a seven-year high
- Only 29% of organizations have a formal succession plan, and just 11% of HR executives say they have a strong internal bench for leadership roles
- Replacing a C-level executive costs between 200% and 213% of annual salary in direct costs; poor succession planning is estimated to destroy nearly $1 trillion annually in market value across S&P 1500 companies
C-Suite turnover statistics 2026: what the data shows
Executive departures have accelerated in ways that most boards were not expecting. The narrative heading into 2024 was stability after pandemic-era reshuffling. The reality turned out to be the opposite.
More than 2,200 CEOs left their roles in 2024, a 16% jump over the prior year and the highest annual total on record according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Q1 2025 set a new quarterly record. CFO appointments hit a seven-year high. CHRO turnover jumped 36% year over year. Whatever was holding leadership teams together through the volatility of 2022 and 2023 has come loose.
This article pulls together the current data on C-suite turnover rates, average tenure by role, voluntary vs. forced departures, industry breakdowns, replacement costs, and succession planning readiness. The sources are Spencer Stuart, Russell Reynolds Associates, the Conference Board, Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Semler Brossy, Korn Ferry, and Harvard Business Review.
1. CEO turnover rates
Overall departure volume
CEO exits have been climbing for two straight years. Challenger, Gray & Christmas tracked 2,200+ CEO departures in 2024, up 16% from 2023 and above any prior year in their dataset. Q1 2025 alone produced 622 departures, a 49% increase over Q1 2023.
At publicly traded companies specifically, CEO departures reached 446 in 2025, also a record, up from 373 in 2024.
S&P 500 and large-cap trends
Spencer Stuart tracked 136 new CEO appointments across S&P 1500 companies in 2024. That figure rose to 168 in 2025, the highest since 2010. The Conference Board projects the S&P 500 CEO succession rate at roughly 13% for 2025, up from 10% in 2024 and above the six-year average of approximately 11%.
One data point that stands out: external CEO hires at S&P 500 companies nearly doubled from 18% in 2024 to 33% in 2025, the highest share in eight years. That number tends to rise when boards cannot find an internal candidate they trust. It is a proxy for succession planning quality.
Global succession rate
The global CEO succession rate climbed to 12.5% in 2025, up from a historic low of 9.8% in 2024 and 12.2% in 2023, according to Semler Brossy and the Conference Board.
| Year | Global CEO succession rate |
|---|---|
| 2021 | ~11.8% |
| 2022 | ~12.1% |
| 2023 | 12.2% |
| 2024 | 9.8% (historic low) |
| 2025 | 12.5% |
Sources: Conference Board CEO Succession Practices 2025; Semler Brossy CEO Succession Report 2025
2. Average CEO tenure
Average outgoing CEO tenure has dropped for four consecutive years, from 8.3 years in 2021 to 7.1 years globally in 2025 per Russell Reynolds Associates. The H1 2025 figure dropped further, to 6.8 years, which is the lowest since Russell Reynolds began publishing this data in 2018.
Spencer Stuart's S&P-specific data shows a similar direction: average CEO tenure fell from 9.1 years in 2021 to 8.5 years in 2025 for S&P contexts.
Internal vs. external hires
Internally promoted CEOs tend to stay longer. Spencer Stuart puts the average tenure of internal hires at 8.7 years versus 7.3 years for external hires. That gap is partly selection effect (boards choose external candidates when they need a specific skillset or turnaround, which comes with shorter runways) and partly the adjustment cost of coming in from outside.
Nearly 40% of S&P 1500 CEOs leave within their first five years, according to Spencer Stuart.
First-time CEOs on the rise
84% of incoming S&P CEOs in 2025 were first-time enterprise CEOs, up sharply from prior years. This is partly generational and partly reflects the pace of change in what boards want: experience in AI transformation, ESG scrutiny, and digital operations at scale is not something many tenured executives have.
3. CFO and other C-suite turnover
CFO
CFO turnover is running higher than CEO turnover as a rate. Russell Reynolds Associates tracked global CFO turnover at 15.1% in 2024, above the six-year average of 14.8% and well above the CEO six-year average of roughly 11%.
In raw volume: 262 CFOs exited globally in 2025 (up 2% from 256 in 2024), while 316 CFOs were appointed. That appointment count is the highest in Russell Reynolds' seven-year series, 12% above the seven-year average of 281.
Average outgoing CFO tenure was 6.1 years globally in 2025, down from 6.2 years in 2023 but slightly up from 5.8 years in 2024. In the UK, the FTSE 100 average CFO tenure dropped to a record low of 4.95 years in 2025, compared to a seven-year average of 6.8 years.
CMO
CMO tenure remains the shortest of any major C-suite role. Spencer Stuart's CMO Tenure Study (2024) put the average at 4.2 years at top-100 advertisers, up from a low of 3.5 years in 2020 but still below every other senior executive category.
CHRO / CPO
The Talent Strategy Group's CHRO Trends 2025 Report tracked 30 new CHRO and CPO appointments at large companies in 2024, representing a 15.5% turnover rate and a 36% year-over-year increase. Average CHRO tenure was 4.5 years in 2024, up from 3.9 years in 2022 and 2023.
CTO / CIO
No comprehensive annual CTO-specific turnover rate study from a major research firm was published in 2024-2025. Korn Ferry's baseline data, from their Age and Tenure in the C-Suite study, puts CTO and CIO tenure in the 4 to 5 year range on average across industries.
C-suite summary by role
| Role | Average tenure (2025 data) | Turnover rate |
|---|---|---|
| CEO | 7.1 years (global outgoing) | ~12.5% global |
| CFO | 6.1 years (global outgoing) | 15.1% (2024) |
| CHRO / CPO | 4.5 years | 15.5% (2024) |
| CMO | 4.2 years | Not published |
| CTO / CIO | ~4-5 years | Not published |
Sources: Russell Reynolds Global CEO and CFO Turnover Indices 2025; Spencer Stuart CMO Tenure Study 2024; Talent Strategy Group CHRO Trends 2025; Korn Ferry Age and Tenure Study
4. Voluntary vs. forced C-suite departures
Around 40% of large-company CEO departures in 2024 involved some degree of board pressure, activist campaigns, or forced exit, according to Spencer Stuart's analysis. In 2025 the picture shifted somewhat: the Conference Board found the rate of explicitly forced exits dropped to 15.2%, down from 16.3% in 2024, suggesting that most 2025 transitions were planned rather than reactive.
That said, activist-driven removals hit record levels simultaneously. The Conference Board tracked 39 activist investor campaigns explicitly targeting CEO replacement in the first 10 months of 2025. Between 2018 and 2025, 127 such campaigns were launched; 38% resulted in leadership change. A record 32 CEOs resigned within one year of an activist campaign in 2025, up from 27 in 2024.
The intersection of those two data points is worth noting: forced exits as a share of total are declining, but activist-triggered exits are at record volume. The broader pool of transitions is just larger.
Departures at high-performing companies
CEO successions at top-quartile TSR performers jumped from 7% in 2024 to 12% in 2025, per the Conference Board. This is the number that tends to surprise boards: turnover is no longer concentrated at underperformers. Strong companies are losing CEOs too, often to retirement, poaching, or strategic realignment at the board level.
5. Industry breakdown of C-suite turnover
Challenger, Gray & Christmas publishes the most granular industry-level CEO exit data. Their 2025 figures:
| Industry | 2025 CEO exits | 2024 CEO exits | YoY change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Government / Non-profit | 427 | 493 | -13% |
| Technology | 208 | 226 | -8% |
| Healthcare / Products | 207 | 277 | -25% |
| Entertainment | 151 | N/A | N/A |
| Financial Services | 127 | 112 | +13% |
Source: Challenger, Gray & Christmas 2025 CEO Turnover Report
Healthcare saw the sharpest decline, down 25%, though it remains one of the highest-volume sectors for exits in absolute terms. Financial Services was the only major sector with meaningful year-over-year growth in departures, up 13%.
In Tech, 40% of CEO departures in 2025 were succession-driven, up from 5% in 2023 and 18% in 2024. That shift suggests tech boards are getting more proactive about planned transitions rather than responding to crises.
Why Financial Services stands out
Regulatory pressure, digital transformation urgency, and compressed timelines for profitability have shortened the runway for financial services CEOs. Interest rate cycles also create short windows where a particular leadership profile is rewarded; when the cycle turns, boards often want a different type of executive.
6. The cost of C-suite replacement
The direct cost of replacing a C-level executive is high. The commonly cited research from Harvard Business School puts executive replacement cost at up to 213% of annual salary when accounting for recruiting, onboarding, and the productivity ramp for a new hire. Failed hires cost more: estimates for a failed C-level placement run between 200% and 400% of salary when severance, disruption, and repeat search costs are included.
Bradford Smart's Topgrading methodology estimates total costs at 5 to 27 times annual salary when strategic derailment is factored in. That range is wide because the damage varies enormously depending on the role and how long a poor-fit executive is in place before the board acts.
Some specific cost components:
- Executive search fees for C-level roles typically run 30% to 33% of first-year cash compensation, with CEO, CFO, and CTO searches often reaching 40% to 50% of first-year income
- Interim leadership costs during transition periods add further expense
- Strategic initiative delays and team attrition during leadership transitions are harder to quantify but consistently appear in post-mortem analyses
Harvard Business Review's frequently cited analysis puts poor succession planning cost across S&P 1500 companies at nearly $1 trillion annually in lost market value.
Organizations without succession strategies experience 25% lower revenue growth than peers with formal programs, according to iMocha's succession planning research compilation for 2026.
7. Succession planning: the gap between what boards say and what they have ready
The succession planning data is where the picture gets concerning.
What boards report
- Only 29% of organizations have a formal succession plan in place (Gitnux Succession Planning Statistics 2026)
- Only 11% of HR executives say they have a strong internal bench to fill leadership roles (SHRM)
- 45% of directors say they are concerned they will not have even one internal successor ready
- 66% of directors express concern about having two or more internal candidates ready
- Just 8% of board directors say their organization has proactively planned five years out for CEO succession, despite best practices calling for exactly that horizon
What boards are doing now
- 34% of U.S. public company directors identified CEO and C-suite succession planning as a top priority for 2025 (Corporate Board Member)
- 50% of board directors say they could name an internal successor tomorrow, up 9 percentage points from three years prior (Corporate Board Member / Conference Board 2025)
- 37% of directors report having delayed CEO transitions due to lack of internal candidates
The external hire spike as a succession signal
The jump in external CEO appointments at S&P 500 companies, from 18% in 2024 to 33% in 2025, is the clearest leading indicator that internal pipelines are not keeping pace with turnover rates. Boards that planned five years ahead tend to promote from within. Boards that did not plan tend to run outside searches when the seat opens.
8. Why C-suite executives are leaving
The reasons for departure vary by role and company stage, but several patterns show up consistently across the research:
Activist investor pressure
Record activist campaigns in 2024 and 2025 produced record CEO exits. The Conference Board's data shows 127 activist campaigns targeting CEO replacement between 2018 and 2025, with 38% ending in leadership change. Boards under activist scrutiny are not waiting for performance to reverse course before acting.
Shorter runways for results
Average CEO tenure has dropped by over a year since 2021. This is partly because boards are setting more specific performance timelines and acting faster when those timelines are missed. BCG's 2025 analysis of CEO tenure trends describes "compressed runways" as a structural change, not a temporary phenomenon.
Changing skill requirements
Spencer Stuart's data on first-time enterprise CEOs reaching 84% of S&P incoming CEOs in 2025 reflects how dramatically the required leadership profile has shifted. AI transformation, ESG accountability, digital operating models, and geopolitical risk management are now table-stakes expectations for public company CEOs. Many sitting executives who built their careers in prior operational environments do not match that profile, and boards are not waiting for them to adapt.
Executive mobility
64% of C-suite leaders say they are likely to move beyond their current employer, up 14 percentage points from prior surveys (iMocha / Gitnux). The supply-side of executive movement has grown independently of board-side pressure.
9. What this means for executive support and organizational continuity
Executive turnover at this rate does not just affect the departing executive. It affects everyone around them.
Every CEO or CFO transition comes with a period of strategic ambiguity, typically 90 to 180 days while the new executive forms their own views, restructures their leadership team, and resets organizational priorities. During that window, execution slows, key reports often leave, and initiatives that were tied to the prior executive's vision get reconsidered.
One of the consistent findings in the succession research is that companies with strong executive support infrastructure, including experienced executive assistants who can maintain continuity across transitions, experience shorter adjustment periods and fewer secondary departures during leadership changes. The institutional knowledge and relationship management that a well-placed executive assistant carries does not leave when the CEO does.
For more on how C-suite executives allocate time and what the research shows about delegation and administrative support, see our analysis of CEO time management statistics and the data on executive coaching ROI.
Sources
- Challenger, Gray & Christmas - 2025 CEO Turnover Report (challengergray.com)
- Challenger, Gray & Christmas - Q1 2025 CEO Turnover Report
- Spencer Stuart - 2024 CEO Transitions Report (spencerstuart.com)
- Spencer Stuart - S&P 500 C-Suite Snapshot 2025
- Spencer Stuart - CMO Tenure Study 2024
- Russell Reynolds Associates - Global CFO Turnover Index: When the Stakes Rise (2025)
- Russell Reynolds Associates - Global CEO Appointments Hit 8-Year H1 Low in 2025
- Russell Reynolds Associates - Global CFO Appointments Hit Seven-Year High in 2025
- Conference Board - CEO Succession Practices in the Russell 3000 and S&P 500: 2025 Edition
- Semler Brossy - CEO Succession Practices 2025 Edition
- Talent Strategy Group - CHRO Trends 2025 Report
- Korn Ferry - Age and Tenure in the C-Suite Study
- Harvard Business Review - The High Cost of Poor Succession Planning (2021)
- Corporate Board Member - Boards Focusing on Succession Planning in 2025
- Gitnux - Succession Planning Statistics 2026
- iMocha - Top 60 Succession Planning Statistics 2026