CEO turnover isn’t just a crisis response anymore
CEO turnover isn’t just a crisis response anymore.
Boards are using succession as a strategic tool — even inside strong companies.
A recent HBR article shows the shift: boards are proactively replacing CEOs to get ahead of AI, geopolitical risk, regulatory pressure, and rising stakeholder expectations, not just to clean up poor performance.
That’s not background noise.
It’s one of the clearest signals of how serious a board is about long-term value creation.
When a CEO change happens in a company you own, it pays to slow down and ask:
What is really happening here?
➤ Is this a proactive upgrade for the next decade, or a delayed reaction?
➤ Is the board elevating a well-prepared internal leader, or scrambling for an external answer?
➤ How will this shift execution, culture, and capital allocation over your holding period?
At Eagle Talon, we don’t treat CEO turnover as a headline.
We treat it as a regime shift and re-underwrite the investment case every time it happens. Leadership determines the direction, the pace, and the quality of decisions that follow.
When the top job changes in your portfolio, do you have a clear way to evaluate what it means for your upside, your downside, and your timing?
🔗 Source: Why CEO Turnover Is Rising in 2025