[ad_1]
In her 2020 book, Who Comes Next? Leadership Succession Planning Made Easy, Mary C. Kelly argues a lack of leadership planning is “the next business crisis.”
“The past few years reminded us that no one will stay forever in the same job. Leaders get promoted or retire. It’s inevitable,” she wrote.
And in the more than three years since those words were published, the CEO revolving door has continued to swing. This year alone, Visa upped longtime president Ryan McInerney to CEO, embattled retailer Adidas named Puma executive Bjørn Gulden its CEO, and CNN replaced Chris Licht with former New York Times CEO Mark Thompson. Tony Spring will be Macy’s new CEO in February, a succession announced 11 months prior to the planned turnover. A year ago, Bob Iger returned as Disney’s CEO. And just last month, OpenAI fired its CEO, Sam Altman, only to see him return days later.
According to business support platform Mind Tools, more than a third (34%) of externally recruited senior executives fail compared to 24% of internal hires, suggesting that long-term planning and development is important to producing credible candidates. The same research also found only 32% of businesses had a CEO succession plan, and 15% said they have no succession plan at all.
The marketing industry is a different kettle of fish when it comes to the need for succession. Advertising agencies are people-based creative jobs, which makes a preplanned route to the top vital to avoid disturbing the established culture.
A structure for progression
The world’s largest agency network, WPP, is strengthening its potential succession pool of candidates with the appointment of Lindsay Pattison as global chief people officer. Pattison has spent more than two decades holding leadership roles within the group, gaining crucial media leadership experience in her role as CEO of WPP’s Maxus Global.
Pattison now holds a seat on the executive committee and could be set to follow a similar path to current IPG CEO Philippe Krakowsky, who held a comparable job within that network not so long ago.
For Marc Nohr, former CEO of agency network Miroma Group, this strategy is undertaken by forward-thinking boards.
“It’s enlightened self-interest for boards to ensure that there is a succession strategy in place. That’s good corporate governance,” said Nohr, who added the real work is often done by the current CEO.
“The truth is that these decisions aren’t really made by boards,” he said, adding that a “farsighted” chief executive will build a team around them from which their successor will emerge.
Internal over external
Maurice Levy, now chairman of Publicis Groupe, was instrumental in choosing his successor, Arthur Sadoun, to CEO in 2017.
“We know that a successor coming from outside the company is always a disruption, which is welcome when the company is in crisis but unwelcome when the company is doing well because it generates a lot of issues,” Levy told Adweek. “You have to wait to understand the company, the culture, the difficulties, and you—most of the time—waste between 12 to 24 months [once in the role].” Sadoun had been with Publicis for 11 years before taking on the CEO role.
