CEO Turnover Cools as Boards Bet on Insiders and Veterans

Posted on in Leadership

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After two years in which chief executives seemed to change as often as office coffee suppliers, things are calming down. The latest Global CEO Turnover Index from Russell Reynolds Associates, covering the first half of 2026, counts 101 CEO departures worldwide, down from 118 a year earlier and the lowest first-half figure in the nine years the firm has tracked. Appointments held at 131, close to the nine-year first-half average of 129. The authors describe leadership change as beginning to stabilize.

Why boards are sitting tight

Rising stock markets, especially in the US, appear to have eased pressure for change, and activists have other priorities: management-change demands made up just 3% of global activist campaigns, with attention focused on mergers and acquisitions. The slowdown showed up across indexes. S&P 500 departures fell from 36 to 30, and the Nikkei 225 saw departures drop from 30 to 19. Departing CEOs had also stayed longer, averaging 9.0 years globally versus 6.6 a year earlier; in the FTSE 100 the average reached 12.5 years.

Experience is back in fashion

When boards did make a change, they increasingly chose people who had done the job before or knew the company from inside:

  • 23% of new CEOs globally had previously led a public company, the highest first-half share on record.
  • In the S&P 500, 11 of 32 new CEOs (34%) had public-company CEO experience, up from 22%.
  • 88% of incoming S&P 500 CEOs were internal appointments, also a record.

Women won 21 of the 131 appointments worldwide, or 16%, the highest share in the tracking period. The picture varied widely: 3 of 32 in the S&P 500, but 6 of 14 in the ASX 200 and 4 of 9 in the Euronext 100, which together accounted for nearly half of all women appointed. The authors' advice for boards is to start succession planning early, keep several credible internal and external candidates in play and judge them against the challenges ahead rather than the job as it looks today. A calm year, in other words, is the best time to prepare for a stormy one.