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CEOs In The News is a weekly intelligence briefing for senior leaders, boards, and those shaping the future of business. Each edition curates the most important executive moves, corporate shifts, and leadership trends — with clear insights on why they matter.

Our mission is simple: deliver clarity, signal, and strategic perspective in minutes — so you start the week one step ahead of the boardroom narrative.

The most consequential CEO announcement of February 2026 came from The Walt Disney Company, which named Josh D’Amaro as its next Chief Executive Officer, effective March 18, 2026. D’Amaro, a 28-year Disney veteran who most recently led the company’s $36 billion Experiences segment, succeeds the legendary Bob Iger in what represents one of the most closely watched succession events in modern corporate history. The appointment signals Disney’s board has opted for deep institutional knowledge over external disruption, a pattern that, as this edition will explore, has become the dominant theme in CEO succession across corporate America.

D’Amaro’s elevation is emblematic of a broader trend: boards are increasingly betting on insiders who understand the cultural DNA of their organizations. At Disney, where the shadow of Iger looms large and the company navigates a complex transformation across streaming, theme parks, and content, the choice of a seasoned operator over an outside change agent speaks volumes about the current governance philosophy. The question now is whether D’Amaro can chart his own course while honoring the legacy he inherits.

But Disney was far from the only major company making headlines with leadership changes. Kroger concluded a nearly year-long CEO search by appointing Greg Foran, the former Walmart U.S. president and CEO, to lead the grocery giant following the sudden departure of Rodney McMullen. PayPal turned to Enrique Lores, the former HP Inc. CEO, as its new President and CEO. And in a historic moment, Berkshire Hathaway saw Greg Abel pen his first shareholder letter on February 28, formally stepping into the enormous shoes left by Warren Buffett, who retired at the start of 2026. Abel vowed to maintain “Buffett’s culture of disciplined investing” while managing a cash hoard of $373.3 billion.

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The past week saw a flurry of significant C-suite appointments across the Fortune 500, reflecting the ongoing churn at the highest levels of corporate leadership. At Ecolab (No. 274 on the Fortune 500), the company restructured its operational leadership by updating Darrell R. Brown’s title to co-COO for Global Markets and appointing Gregory B. Cook as co-COO for Global Businesses, effective April 1. Brown, a 24-year company veteran, will share the COO role with Cook, who has spent 28 years at Ecolab and most recently served as EVP and President of the Institutional Group.

In the chemicals sector, Westlake (No. 345) announced that CFO M. Steven Bender will retire once a successor is identified. The food industry saw Hormel Foods (No. 352) make a forward-looking move by appointing Donald Monk as its first-ever Chief Technology Officer, effective March 23. Monk arrives from Cargill and previously spent 33 years at General Mills, where he served as CIO. Meanwhile, Nucor (No. 140) promoted John L. “Jack” Sullivan to CFO, Treasurer, and EVP, succeeding Stephen D. Laxton, who will continue as COO.

In the retail space, Chewy (No. 357) named Chris Deppe as its new CFO. Deppe, who previously led all corporate and commercial finance functions at Chewy, brings more than 16 years of senior finance experience at Amazon. Perhaps the most notable appointment of the week came from Charter Communications (No. 79), which hired Nick Jeffery as COO effective September 1, 2026. Jeffery will join from Frontier Communications, where he has served as President and CEO since 2021. Charter has not had a COO since current CEO Chris Winfrey was promoted to the chief executive role in 2022.

Beyond the Fortune 500, February also brought leadership changes at Toyota, where CFO Kenta Kon was promoted to CEO in the company’s second leadership transition in three years. Sanofi appointed Belen Garijo, the former Merck KGaA CEO, to lead the pharmaceutical giant. Microsoft Gaming named Asha Sharma as EVP and CEO, replacing the retiring Phil Spencer. CarMax brought in Keith Barr from InterContinental Hotels Group as CEO and President [2]. And Constellation Brands named board member Nicholas Fink as its next CEO, effective April 13.

The executive moves described above are not isolated events. They are part of a historic wave of CEO turnover that is fundamentally reshaping the corporate leadership landscape. According to Spencer Stuart’s 2025 S&P 1500 CEO Transitions report, published in February 2026, a total of 168 new CEOs were named across the S&P 1500 in 2025, the highest number since 2010. Within the S&P 500 alone, 59 companies appointed new chief executives, an 11% year-over-year increase that ties with 2017 and 2020 for the most in over a decade.

The data from Russell Reynolds Associates paints an even more dramatic global picture. Their 2025 Global CEO Turnover Index recorded 234 CEO departures worldwide, a 16% increase from 2024 and 21% above the eight-year average. Constantine Alexandrakis, CEO of Russell Reynolds, characterized the trend as structural rather than cyclical, stating that “elevated CEO turnover is now a sustained feature of today’s corporate governance landscape”.

What makes this wave particularly noteworthy is that it is not confined to underperforming companies. The Conference Board’s 2025 CEO Succession Practices report reveals that CEO turnover among S&P 500 firms in the top three performance quartiles jumped from 7% to 12%, nearly matching the 14% rate for bottom-quartile performers. This suggests boards are increasingly using CEO succession as a proactive strategic tool to realign with changing market dynamics, rather than a purely reactive measure. As the Conference Board noted, “CEO succession serves not only as a response to results but also as a governance tool for positioning companies for the future”.

The window of opportunity for new CEOs to set strategy and deliver results has also been severely compressed. Average departing CEO tenure fell to 8.5 years in the S&P 1500, down from 9.2 years in 2024 and the lowest since 2019. Globally, the figure was even lower at 7.1 years, down from 8.3 years in 2021. Laura Sanderson of Russell Reynolds observed that “that grace period has been severely compressed”, with CEOs departing within 30 to 36 months increasing by 79% year-over-year.

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As the pace of turnover quickens, the profile of the incoming leader is also evolving. In 2025, boards demonstrated a renewed preference for internal candidates and a significant bet on first-time CEOs. According to Spencer Stuart, 60% of new S&P 1500 CEOs were promoted from within the company, an increase from 57% in 2024. This trend was most pronounced in the largest companies, with 73% of new S&P 500 leaders being insiders. This contrasts sharply with small-cap companies, which had an even 50/50 split between internal and external hires.

Perhaps more striking is the reversal of a multi-year trend toward hiring seasoned veterans. In 2025, a remarkable 84% of new S&P 1500 CEOs were first-timers in the role, a significant increase from the prior year. Globally, the figure was even higher at 86%. This indicates that boards are prioritizing deep company and industry knowledge over prior public-company CEO experience. The most common pathway to the top job remains the Chief Operating Officer or President role, which accounted for 48% of all promotions into the CEO position in 2025. However, the path from CFO, while still significant, declined from 16% of appointments in 2024 to 9% in 2025. This data collectively paints a picture of boards looking for leaders who can hit the ground running with an intimate understanding of the business, even if it means taking a chance on an unproven enterprise leader.

One deeply concerning data point deserves attention: the proportion of women named CEO fell sharply from 15% in 2024 to just 9% in 2025. The Conference Board separately confirmed that the number of women CEOs in the S&P 500 has plateaued at 48. This regression, occurring against a backdrop of record overall turnover, raises serious questions about the state of the leadership pipeline for women executives.

While many CEO transitions are strategic, a significant number are driven by underperformance and leadership failures, which often have a direct and damaging impact on shareholder value. The case of pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk provides a stark example. The company’s stock plummeted by nearly 50% in 2025, marking its worst year on record and prompting the appointment of its first-ever non-Danish CEO. The new leader faces a challenging path, warning investors that “it will get worse before it gets better” as the company navigates significant pricing pressures.

In the retail sector, Target’s stock declined by approximately 33% between August 2024 and August 2025, leading to the replacement of CEO Brian Cornell with Michael Fiddelke. The change appears to be bearing some fruit, with the stock recovering about 10% since Fiddelke took the helm and initiated a corporate restructuring that included eliminating 500 corporate roles. Similarly, Starbucks saw its stock fall about 30% during the brief 17-month tenure of Laxman Narasimhan. His replacement by former Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol triggered the best trading day in Starbucks’ history, with the stock soaring 22% on the announcement, adding $21.4 billion in market value in a single session.

These cases, along with the turmoil at Kroger leading to a year-long CEO search and the public criticism of American Airlines CEO Robert Isom by employee unions over a “slew of disasters”, illustrate the high stakes of CEO performance and the market’s swift judgment when leadership is perceived to be failing. According to ExeChange data, forced CEO exits reached 39.8% in 2025, near the record high of 41.6% set in 2024, underscoring that boards and shareholders are exercising less patience than ever before.

Perhaps the most consequential trend emerging from the data is the steady erosion of CEO tenure. This is not a temporary blip but appears to be a structural shift in how long boards are willing to give their chief executives to deliver results.

Spencer Stuart’s data shows that average departing CEO tenure in the S&P 1500 peaked at 10.3 years in 2021 and has since fallen to 8.5 years in 2025. The Russell Reynolds global data tells an even more compressed story, with average tenure declining from 8.3 years in 2021 to just 7.1 years in 2025. In the first half of 2025 alone, the average tenure of departing CEOs was just 6.8 years, the lowest since Russell Reynolds began tracking the metric in 2018.

The Challenger, Gray & Christmas data adds further context. More than 2,000 CEO exits occurred across all U.S. companies in 2025, with 446 of those at publicly traded firms, the highest number since the firm began tracking in 2002. The year started with a torrent of departures, with a record 646 CEOs exiting in the first quarter alone. Andy Challenger noted that “the election seemed to set off a wave of leadership exits at the end of 2024 and into the start of last year”.

This compression of tenure has profound implications for corporate strategy, succession planning, and the development of leadership pipelines. When CEOs know their runway is shorter, the incentive structure shifts toward shorter-term value creation, potentially at the expense of long-term strategic investments. For boards, the challenge is to balance accountability with the patience required for transformational change.

Looking ahead, several situations bear close watching. The leadership transition at The Washington Post, with Jeff D’Onofrio stepping in as acting CEO and Publisher following Will Lewis’s departure, comes at a moment of deep uncertainty for the storied publication. In the pharmaceutical sector, Sanofi has brought in Belen Garijo as its new CEO to navigate a fiercely competitive landscape. The performance of new CEOs at major consumer brands like CarMax (Keith Barr) and Constellation Brands (Nicholas Fink) will be under the microscope as they take the helm.

The Berkshire Hathaway transition deserves particular attention. Greg Abel’s first shareholder letter, published February 28, was a masterclass in continuity messaging, but the real test will come when Abel must make his first major capital allocation decision independent of Buffett’s counsel. With $373.3 billion in cash at year-end 2025, the pressure to deploy capital wisely is immense.

Furthermore, the trend of appointing board members directly to the CEO role, which occurred in 19 S&P 1500 companies in 2025, suggests that some companies may be caught unprepared for succession and is a potential indicator of future instability. The sharp decline in women being named CEO, from 15% to 9%, also warrants sustained scrutiny from governance advocates and institutional investors alike.

The era of the long-tenured, unassailable CEO appears to be waning, replaced by a new paradigm of heightened accountability, strategic agility, and compressed timelines. As Constantine Alexandrakis of Russell Reynolds Associates observed, “Elevated CEO turnover is now a sustained feature of today’s corporate governance landscape”. Boards are more willing than ever to make changes, not just in response to failure, but as a forward-looking move to secure competitive advantage.

For current and aspiring leaders, the message is clear: the pressure to perform is immense, the grace period is short, and the ability to drive transformation is paramount. The great leadership churn of 2025 is not an anomaly; it is the new normal. As we enter March 2026, the executive suite remains the most dynamic and consequential arena in the business world, and this newsletter will continue to track every move.

CEOs In The News is published weekly for an audience earning $300K to $10MM. It’s intended for educational use to empower executives for the ongoing week. For executive search inquiries, executive branding needs, board advisory services, or newsletter feedback, contact our editorial team. The opinions in this newsletter are not that of its sponsors.

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