A Long-Shot Candidate to CEO

Challenge

A $50bn multinational company undergoing a five-year CEO succession journey worked with search firms and other third-party companies to identify five internal candidates. The company then contacted The ExCo Group to help develop the potential CEOs and ensure that each candidate progressed against their own development plans. At the time, however, the industry, marketplace, and regulatory environment were changing rapidly. The company also faced margin challenges in its mature businesses, and its R&D pipeline was struggling. The board and senior management engaged in a full-scale review of the strategy.

Unlock

As the new strategy evolved, The ExCo Group provided regular reminders that the candidate pool likely needed to change because of the new and emerging challenges that the next CEO would have to navigate. Those discussions led the board to widen their aperture and consider two executives who operated in roles that were closer to the market and who had demonstrated the nimbleness and comfort with ambiguity that were going to be required of the emerging business strategy.

Impact

One of those candidates, considered a long shot by the board at first, worked with an ExCo mentor and showed tremendous growth over a two-year period. His development so impressed the board that he was named CEO and chairman. The CEO propelled the company to achieve record growth and helped build the company’s reputation as an engine of innovation.