CEOs are quitting at record rates, and women are twice as likely as men to leave

CEOs are quitting at record rates, and the small share of women at the very top are leaving the fastest.

Global CEO turnover spiked in the first quarter of 2024, with 52 departures and 68 new appointments among companies tracked in global stock indices such as the S&P 500, FTSE 100 and others. That’s according to the latest quarterly turnover index from Russell Reynolds Associates, a leadership advisory firm.

What the analysis refers to as “failed CEO appointments,” or CEOs lasted less than two years, accounted for 15% of outgoing CEOs in early 2024. But turnover rates are worse for women.

High-powered women are leaving the fastest

Roughly 1 in 4, or 24%, of women CEOs leave their post within two years, according to RRA data going back to 2018. That’s more than twice the share of the 10% of men who leave their CEO job in that window. With an even shorter timeline, women CEOs are four times as likely as men to leave the role within a year.

The figures are “surprising and disappointing,” says Ty Wiggins, CEO and executive transition practice lead at Russell Reynolds Associates, and author of “The New CEO.”

“Our underlying concern is: Are women being given a poisoned chalice in terms of inheriting a business in trouble, or being put into roles where their likelihood of success is far less?” he says.

Some management experts refer to this as the “glass cliff,”  which suggests women and people from underrepresented groups are promoted to leadership roles during challenging times, thereby setting them up for failure.

The first 12 to 24 months are especially crucial for an incoming CEO, Wiggins says, because that’s when they set a new agenda, build their leadership team and must prove their changes have made a positive impact on the business.

But challenging economic cycles in recent years have put pressure on businesses and their CEOs, Wiggins says. Their corporate boards, meanwhile, have taken “stronger positions in responding to market pressure more quickly,” as in, firing CEOs that can’t show a meaningful positive impact by their second year, he says.

Women CEOs, in particular, are judged harder when things go wrong, Wiggins says. One client recently told him she felt she had to work twice as hard to get the same amount of support as a male counterpart.

“There is a pressure to perform and deliver and be near-perfect,” Wiggins says.

Across the business world, senior-level women are quitting at some of the highest rates ever, according to data from LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Company, citing challenges like microaggressions, promotions gaps, and carrying the responsibility for diversity and inclusion initiatives.

88 years to global CEO gender parity

As for the 68 new CEOs appointed in early 2024, just five are women. For all of 2023, just 22 women (or 12%) were newly named as CEOs, compared with 156 men named to the role.

At the current pace, it would take 88 years to achieve global gender parity in chief executive representation.

“This is a very disappointing statistic,” Wiggins says. “Our hope is this highlights for boards and organizations there is a chasm in terms of the success rate among women CEOs.”

Wiggins says corporate boards must do a better job supporting women to get to the C-suite and keep them there.

An early step is to recognize women have different expected responsibilities in the workplace and at home, which could hurt their path to leadership. “Organizations need to create an environment that recognizes that and meets individuals where they are” to train, promote and protect women leaders, Wiggins says.

New CEOs often lose confidence in the changes they’re making at the 6- to 9-month mark, Wiggins adds, and “boards have a real role in supporting a CEO through that” by assessing realistic expectations and providing guidance.

Corporate boards, themselves, have a slightly higher gender balance, with women making up 32% of global boards across the same indices covered in the Global CEO Turnover Index. But progress is slow and hampered: In the U.S., for example, California courts have struck down two state laws that would mandate greater diversity on public company boards.

There’s a lot of room to improve, Wiggins says: “We can be convinced things aren’t as bad and we’re doing a better job as a business community [to reach gender parity], and we’re not yet.”

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