Verified 2026
Succession planning statistics, sourced and verified.
How this page works: figures verified 2026-07-04, refreshed annually. Where a primary source is paywalled, we verified through a reputable secondary that explicitly attributes the figure, and we say so. Older canonical research (Bidwell 2011, the Stanford board survey) is dated honestly rather than passed off as new.
Citing these numbers: cite the original source we link, not us. If this compilation saved you the digging, a link here helps other people find it.
CEO succession and transitions
The most-studied corner of succession, because the costs are visible in market value and the turnover is public.
- ~$1T / year
Estimated market value destroyed annually by poorly managed CEO and C-suite transitions in the S&P 1500.
Harvard Business Review, “The High Cost of Poor Succession Planning” (Fernández-Aráoz, Nagel, Green) · 2021
- 20–25%
How much higher company valuations and investor returns could run with better succession planning, per the same analysis.
- 39%
Share of external CEO hires that would have outperformed a comparable internal promotion, in a model of 17 years of outside-CEO hiring at US public companies.
- 202
CEO departures across 13 major global stock indices in 2024, an all-time record; a record 43 of them had been in the role under three years.
Russell Reynolds Associates, Global CEO Turnover Index · 2024 data
- 22%
Share of 2024's record CEO departures that were part of a planned succession process. Internal promotions of incoming CEOs simultaneously hit an all-time high of 73%.
Russell Reynolds Associates, Global CEO Turnover Index · 2024 data
- 147
CEO transitions at S&P 1500 companies in 2024, up from 136 the year before. 44% of new appointments were external hires, the highest share since tracking began in 2000.
Spencer Stuart, 2024 CEO Transitions · 2024 data
- 9.2 years
Average tenure of departing S&P 1500 CEOs in 2024, down from 10.3 in 2021. Among departing S&P 500 CEOs, tenure fell from 11.2 to 8.3 years over the same period.
Spencer Stuart, 2024 CEO Transitions · 2024 data
- 13%
S&P 500 CEO succession rate in 2025 (through October), up from 10% in 2024, with external hires nearly doubling from 18% to 33% of appointments.
The Conference Board (with Egon Zehnder, ESGAUGE, Semler Brossy), CEO Succession Practices · 2025
- 84%
How much likelier externally recruited CEOs are to leave within their first three years compared with internally promoted ones.
Allgood & Farrell, as reported in the HBR analysis above · 2021
Leadership bench and readiness
What organizations say when you ask whether anyone is actually ready to step up.
- 20%
Share of HR leaders who say their organization has leaders ready now to fill critical roles. The other 80% lack confidence in their bench.
DDI, Global Leadership Forecast 2025 (10,796 leaders, 2,014 organizations) · 2025
- 49%
Share of critical positions that internal candidates could fill immediately, even though 75% of organizations say they prefer promoting from within.
- 2.8×
How much likelier organizations with strong leadership benches are to outperform financially. They are also 2.9× likelier to fill leadership roles internally.
- 12%
Share of companies confident in their leadership bench in 2023, alongside the largest drop in leadership-quality ratings DDI had measured in a decade.
DDI, Global Leadership Forecast 2023 (~14,000 leaders, 1,500+ organizations) · 2023
- 1.6×
How much likelier promotions are to succeed when objective assessment informs the selection decision.
Who actually has a plan
- 21%
Share of organizations with a formal succession plan. Another 24% run an informal one; 56% have no plan at all.
- 51%
Share of board directors who say a written succession plan exists for their current CEO.
Gartner, 2023 Board of Directors Talent Survey (200 directors; reported by SHRM) · 2023
- 27%
Share of nonprofit organizations with a written executive succession plan.
Internal promotion vs external hiring
The research case for building a bench instead of buying one.
- 18–20%
Pay premium commanded by external hires over internal people moved into the same jobs, while receiving worse performance evaluations for their first two years and exiting at higher rates.
Matthew Bidwell (Wharton), “Paying More to Get Less,” Administrative Science Quarterly · 2011
- 15%
Average pay premium for externally hired CEOs over internally promoted ones.
Custódio, Ferreira & Matos, as reported in the HBR analysis above · 2021
- 3.7×
How much likelier high-potential employees are to leave within a year when their managers don't provide regular growth and development opportunities.
What vacancies and turnover cost
- 0.5–2× salary
Estimated cost of replacing a single employee. Across the US economy, voluntary turnover costs businesses roughly $1 trillion a year.
Gallup · 2019
- 21% of salary
Median cost of replacing a typical worker across 30 published case studies, with executive and other highly paid roles running as high as roughly 213% of salary.
- $35,879
Average cost of hiring an executive, versus $5,475 for a non-executive hire: nearly seven times as much.
SHRM, 2025 Talent Acquisition Benchmarking (2,371 organizations) · 2025
Boards and governance
- 30%
Share of public-company directors who say their board has no CEO successor identified. Another 10% don't know; 58% call maintaining an internal pipeline the hardest part of CEO succession.
NACD, 2024 Public Company Board Practices and Oversight Survey · 2024
- 2 hrs / year
Average time boards spent on CEO succession planning in a canonical survey of 140+ CEOs and directors; 39% reported zero viable internal candidates.
Stanford GSB Rock Center & Heidrick & Struggles, CEO Succession Planning Survey · 2010
Family business succession
- ~30% → 12% → 3%
Long-cited survival rates for family businesses transitioning to the second, third, and fourth generations. Industry statistics republished for years rather than a recent survey; the chain of attribution runs through the Conway Center for Family Business.
Conway Center for Family Business (attributing Family Business Alliance) · long-standing
Industry-specific pressure
- 16%
US hospital CEO turnover in 2022, the third consecutive year at that rate.
American College of Healthcare Executives, annual hospital CEO turnover analysis · 2022 data
- +15%
Year-over-year increase in hospital CEO departures through July 2025 (78 exits versus 68 a year earlier).
Challenger, Gray & Christmas tracking, reported by Advisory Board · 2025
- >30%
Share of the US federal workforce the GAO warned would become retirement-eligible within roughly three years, a structural succession risk for government agencies.
US Government Accountability Office, testimony GAO-16-880T · 2016
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