An effective CEO is still the most crucial variable in determining the success of a company. With more than 45 years of experience placing CEOs — and an array of state-of-the-art assessment tools and simulations — we know what differentiates stellar CEO performance.
Few founders stay with their companies for the duration. According to research conducted by Harvard business professor Noam Wasserman, 50% of founders lasted less than four years and fewer than 25% of founders led their companies’ initial public offerings.
By Jane Edison Stevenson, Vice Chairman, Board & CEO Services
As Katrina Lake, founder and CEO of online retailer Stitch Fix, becomes the only female leader of a tech IPO in 2017, her history points to lessons for other female leaders – the importance of both a STEM background and a driving sense of purpose.
By Jane Edison Stevenson, Vice Chairman, Board & CEO Services
You know the feeling…you’re faced with a difficult issue, and examine it exhaustively without arriving at a solution. Finally, you adopt a fresh perspective and – voilà – a resolution starts coming into focus. Sound familiar? We experienced this epiphany at Korn Ferry during our work to create a roadmap for developing more women CEOs in the Fortune 500. Supported by a grant from The Rockefeller Foundation, our just-completed research is part of the Foundation’s 100×25 initiative, which aims for at least 100 Fortune 500 women CEOs by 2015.
By Tierney Remick, Vice Chairman, Board and CEO Services
Over the past year, there have been numerous and increasing examples of egregious lapses in ethical judgement on the part of leaders across industry and government. These lapses, and the leaders who made them, have harmed customers, employees, and other stakeholders. The actions they took also eroded the trust we have in leaders and severally damaged the reputations of the executives involved and the organizations they work for, resulting in loss of shareholder value and the emergence of a rallying cry for sincere Leadership Trust.
By Nels Olson, Vice Chairman and Co-Leader of Korn Ferry’s Board & CEO Services Practice
The recently announced 2017 Nobel Prize winners demonstrate a variety of abilities – some of which are fascinating to examine against the qualities required to successfully lead an innovative and sustainable organization.
By Jane Edison Stevenson, Vice Chairman, Board & CEO Services
None of us have a solution to fix our world so that we’ll never witness another tragedy like what we saw this week in Las Vegas. What’s particularly troubling is that horrific events are happening with greater frequency and our society is becoming increasingly divided and insecure. While we may not have answers, as leaders, we need to think about our response.
By Tierney Remick, Vice Chairman, Board and CEO Services
Inspiring trust is arguably the most important attribute of a great leader. When employees trust their CEO, they are far more likely to embrace the organization’s mission and contribute beyond the requirements of their jobs. Conversely, when CEO trust is breached, employees become less engaged and less inclined to go the extra mile.
By Nels Olson, Vice Chairman and Co-Leader of Korn Ferry’s Board & CEO Services Practice
And what can you do to raise it? (*crisis quotient)
Much the way the current, unprecedentedly severe storm season of floods and hurricanes reminds us of our communities’ vulnerabilities and the need to be prepared, corporate crises have a way of stress-testing organizations for weak spots that may need shoring up.
By Jane Edison Stevenson, Vice Chairman, Board & CEO Services
Culture and culture change are hot topics these days, whether related to countries or corporations. We need look no further than the recent tragedy in Charlottesville, Virginia, or corporate difficulties at Wells Fargo and Uber for examples of what dysfunctional cultures look like, but how is culture created?
By Tierney Remick, Vice Chairman, Board and CEO Services
Last week saw the passing of a great man and an exceptional leader, Ara Parseghian. Journalists will write about Parseghian as the legendary Notre Dame football coach who led the team to a period of grid-iron dominance after a period of “underperformance”. In fact, it was his earlier coaching success at Northwestern University that led him to South Bend in the mid 1960’s. All of this is true; Parseghian’s performance record and innovative approach to coaching ,on and off the field, speaks for itself.
By Tierney Remick, Vice Chairman, Board and CEO Services
For the 20th year running, Korn Ferry Hay Group is proud to have partnered with Fortune on their list of the World’s Most Admired Companies.
Are there dots to be connected? Lessons learned? We think so.
CEOs of the top companies on the list speak openly about how they continue to drive performance in an increasingly competitive economy. What makes the critical difference? People. And when these leaders say “people are our greatest asset,” it is more than mere lip service. Specifically, these leading companies, and their CEOs, place a high value on the ability to attract and retain the talented people and high-caliber management who can ensure their ongoing success, even in challenging times.
By Scott Kingdom
What can a Super Bowl Champion Head Coach teach us about CEO leadership? Plenty!
Love them or hate them, the New England Patriots and the triad of owner Robert Kraft, head Coach Bill Belichick and team leader and quarterback Tom Brady have once again proven they are the very best of the uber competitive National Football League.
The MPW Insiders Network is an online community where the biggest names in business and beyond answer timely career and leadership questions. Today’s answer for: “What advice would you give to women who hope to make it to the C-suite?” is written by Jane Edison Stevenson, global leader for CEO succession and vice chairman of board and CEO services at Korn Ferry, and Tierney Remick, vice chairman of board and CEO services at Korn Ferry.
By Nels Olson
With the presidential election just around the corner, there is rampant speculation on who the next present-elect’s team will comprise, with talking heads on 24-hour news channels opining on likely cabinet picks for each party’s candidate.
It is widely understood that the job of US president is far too demanding for any one person to execute without a top-notch supporting cast, and the same concept applies in the corporate arena.
By Tierney Remick
What happens when leaders – whether in the private or public sector – are disconnected from their constituencies? Leaders who operate this way now do so at their peril and at great risk to the organization. Political case in point: Brexit.
By Tierney Remick
According to new studies just released by the Korn Ferry Institute, the research arm of Korn Ferry, companies that rely on more sophisticated CEO assessments may see significant gains – as high as 80 percent in market cap alone.
The results are just the latest example of companies around the globe turning to more innovative, sophisticated methods for hiring their most valued – and typically highest paid – leader. Much of the effort has been directed at curtailing CEO turnover, which hit a six-month high in December and has periodically surged since.
By Nels Olson and Tierney Remick
It takes a great board to provide CEOs and the strategy the support required for success. No matter how capable the CEO, a carefully selected board provides a definite competitive edge.
Running a company is increasingly a team sport – better represented not by the old, hierarchical organizational triangle but that same triangle turned upside-down. And in a rapidly shifting 24/7 business environment, CEOs need all the resources they can get to ensure they recognize, seize and properly leverage the right opportunities.
By Nels Olson, Tierney Remick, and Andrés Tapia
When Wayne Gretzky was asked what made him a great hockey player, he said, “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it’s been.” Boards should take that insight to heart in their own succession planning if they want to maintain the right mix of traditional director expertise and the relevant new expertise required to successfully guide their companies in the future.
These considerations are becoming evenmore urgent as directors face a number of new challenges. Boards have been aging and turnover is now increasing. That is partly because many seasoned executives who were recruited or retained to guide management teams through the uncharted waters of the 2008 global financial crisis postponed retiring and will be doing so in the next few years. That anticipated volume of retirements has, in turn, created demand for new directors—including an infusion of additional diverse candidates—many of whom are less experienced. A parallel phenomenon is occurring across management teams in companies large and small.
By Joann S. Lublin
Clara Shih, a social-media entrepreneur, took a board seat at Starbucks Corp. in December—at the ripe old age of 29. Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton became the youngest director at Barry Diller‘sIAC/InterActive Corp. in September, when she was just 31.
The appointments illustrate a surprising trend. While most U.S. corporate boardrooms remain a bastion of white men with gray hair, companies eager to stay on top of hot technologies or facing pressure from activist investors are choosing more youthful directors.
Published in the Director Advisory on Directorship.com
By Nels Olson
When it comes to recruiting world-class CEOs—who can make all the difference in the success of an enterprise—some things have not changed. Always in demand, this select group is more coveted than ever as companies seek the edge in a challenging economy. While the pool of individuals with the skills and experience to lead these companies remains small, the supply never keeps pace with the demand.
What has changed, dramatically, is the steady spotlight on compensation. In the current environment, companies are subjected to intense scrutiny: by regulators, by the press and of course, by shareholder groups, who will increasingly have input on issues once the business of the board only. Nonetheless, companies must still vie for the best CEOs.
