Equilar CEO Tracker: Q4 2020 Update

February 16, 2021

Owen Gilles

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Key Findings:

1. 70 announced CEO departures in 2020 versus 80 in 2019

2. 15% of appointed CEOs in 2020 were women versus 12% in all of 2019.

3. Only 23% of appointed CEOs in 2020 were external hires versus 33% in all of 2019.

Equilar 500 companies announced 70 CEO departures in 2020. This compares to a total of 80 announced CEO departures in all of 2019. 53 of the 70 CEOs departed by the end of the year, with the remainder expected to leave sometime in 2021.

The most common reason for departure in 2020 was resignation, which accounted for 52.9% of all departures. The second most common reason for departure was retirement at 28.6% of departures. The figure below reports the share of various reasons for departure among outgoing CEOs in 2020:

* “Other” includes mergers & acquisitions, death and interim.

The average tenure of outgoing CEOs in 2020 was 8.5 years with a median of six years. Leslie H. Wexner of L Brands had the longest tenure at 57.4 years. Peter Harf of Coty had the shortest tenure at 0.3 years. The figure belows displays the tenure distribution of departing CEOs in 2020:

The average CEO lifetime pay for all 70 departing CEOs is $94.4 million with a median of $50.9 million. Robert Iger of Disney, with a tenure of 14.4 years, earned the highest total CEO lifetime pay at $678.5 million. Hartmut Liebel, with a tenure of 0.9 years, had the lowest CEO pay at $0.5 million.

In 2020, six female CEOs announced their departures: Virginia M. Rometty (IBM), Marillyn A. Hewson (Lockheed Martin), Cheryl S. Miller (AutoNation), Kathryn V. Marinello (Hertz Global), Mary A. Laschinger (Veritiv Corporation) and Heather M. Bresch (Mylan N.V.).

Nine women were appointed CEO in 2020: Sonia Syngal (The Gap, Inc.), Carol B. Tomé (UPS), Joanne C. Crevoiserat (Tapestry, Inc.), Sue Y. Nabi (Coty Inc.), Linda J. Rendle (The Clorox Company), Jennifer C. Witz (Sirius XM Holdings Inc.), Jane N. Fraser (Citigroup Inc.), Karen S. Lynch (CVS Health Corporation) and Lauren R. Hobart (DICK’s Sporting Goods, Inc.). Overall, 15% of announced CEO appointments in 2020 were women, up from 12% and 6% in 2019 and 2018, respectively.

In total, external appointments increased from 22% in 2018 to 33% in 2019. For all announced appointments in 2020, this trend has not continued, with only 23.3% of newly appointed CEOs coming from external sources.

Departures

Successors

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