The 2011 CEO Succession Report

Responsibility for succession planning belongs in the boardroom and nowhere else. The board of directors is legally authorized, temperamentally suited, and in possession of the authority and experience needed for effective succession planning. The issues that can lead boards to neglect succession planning are primarily organizational—and, to a lesser degree, political, psychological, and cultural. However, boards can overcome these issues if they are willing to codify the process and make it integral to and continuous with their duties of governance, business oversight, risk management, and strategic decision making. The CEO Succession Report documents and analyzes succession events of chief executive officers (CEOs) of S&P 500 companies. In addition to updates on historical trends, it features discussions of the most notable recent cases of CEO succession, which are based on press announcements and other publicly available information.