Last year, one in nine CEOs at the 1,500 largest U.S. public companies was replaced — the highest rate since 2010. More than 80% of the incoming class had never run a public company before. The churn isn't the story; what boards admit about the bench behind it is.
Churn is outrunning readiness
Korn Ferry's 2026 survey of 250 directors and CEOs is blunt: 50% of boards say succession planning started too late in their last transition, and only 15% say they did a 'very strong job' preparing their first-time CEO. Seventy percent never gathered enough 360-degree feedback on the person they picked. Heidrick & Struggles adds that more than a third of U.S. companies have a CEO whose capabilities don't match what the next two to three years demand — yet only a quarter of boards treat succession as a priority.
Where this is heading
This is a cadence problem, not a process one. Succession still runs on vacancy-triggered timelines — a CEO leaves, a search begins — while boards now rotate leaders on transformation clocks. The result: first-time CEOs handed AI-era decisions with less runway and no accumulated trust. Only 10% of directors say their new CEO is already fully trusted by the board, and half admit they played it too safe in the last pick.
The organizations that win will run leadership readiness as an always-on system: quarterly bench reviews, 360-degree feedback before the vacancy, and internal candidates stress-tested against the three-year strategy — not today's org chart. The laggards will keep importing external CEOs (27% of Fortune 500 appointments, up from 18%) into roles nobody prepared anyone for. Your succession plan isn't a document you open when the CEO resigns; it's the rate at which you develop leaders every quarter. If that rate is slower than your churn, the market has already made the decision for you.