ReportWire

Tag: corporate leadership

  • Your competition for the CEO role might be on your board | Fortune

    [ad_1]

    Appointing board directors as CEOs was once a “break glass in case of emergency” strategy reserved for scandal, illness, or sudden resignation. While it remains a minority path compared with traditional internal promotions, it is no longer an anomaly.

    New data from Spencer Stuart highlights the shift. Of the 168 new S&P 1500 chief executives appointed in 2025, the highest annual total since 2010, 19 were drawn from their own company boards, the most since 2020. Spencer Stuart classifies directors as outsiders because they lack day-to-day operating responsibility. Even so, more boards are turning to them.

    The increase comes amid elevated churn. CEO departures in the S&P 500 reached roughly 13% in 2025, according to governance trackers, leaving boards to manage performance pressure and succession gaps simultaneously. Internal candidates, such as chief operating officers and division heads, still account for the majority of appointments. But in moments of strategic reset, boards sometimes look beyond executives associated with the existing plan. Meanwhile, several high-profile external hires have reinforced the risks of expensive searches that promise reinvention but deliver disruption.

    The insider-outsider advantage

    Against that backdrop, directors offer what board advisers describe as an insider-outsider balance. They understand the company’s strategy, capital allocation framework, and risk profile. Yet they are not embedded in a single operating silo. That distance can make it easier to reset priorities without discarding the broader plan.

    Recent moves show how the model is playing out across sectors. At Constellation Brands, Nicholas Fink was named chief executive in February 2026 after serving on the board since 2021. Match Group elevated director Spencer Rascoff to chief executive in 2025 to accelerate product and artificial intelligence initiatives.

    Other examples reinforce the pattern. Bed Bath & Beyond appointed Marcus Lemonis, its executive chairman, as permanent chief executive in January 2026 following the company’s emergence from bankruptcy. Science Applications International Corp. named James Regan permanent chief executive in February 2026, after he had served on the board since 2023.

    These appointments do not signal a collapse in succession planning. Internal promotions remain the dominant route to the corner office. Instead, boards are broadening the pipeline and building optionality into leadership plans amid elevated executive churn.

    The shift also reflects who now occupies board seats. A growing share of directors are active or recently retired chief executives with significant operating experience. That evolution has created a viable bench within the boardroom itself. Directors can be evaluated over years of strategy sessions and crisis deliberations before they are ever tapped to run the company. Governance advisers describe the approach as succession by design.

    What it means for C-suite contenders

    For aspiring chief executives, the competitive landscape has changed.

    The bar for readiness is higher. Internal candidates are no longer competing only against peers down the hall. They may also be measured against directors who have already run public companies and have established credibility with investors. In volatile periods, that experience can appear lower risk.

    Timelines are also compressing. If boards are informally cultivating potential successors in their own ranks, internal candidates must signal enterprise-level leadership earlier. Waiting for a formal succession process may be too late. Executives who want the top job need visibility in board discussions, exposure to enterprise risk, and a clearly articulated long-term strategy.

    There is an opportunity in the shift as well. Boards that elevate directors are often looking for leaders who combine operational depth with governance sophistication. C-suite executives who engage proactively with directors, serve on external boards, and broaden their scope beyond a single function can strengthen their case. The more an executive already operates like a chief executive, the harder it is for a board to choose someone else—even one of its own.

    [ad_2]

    Ruth Umoh

    Source link

  • Demetriou: When to pursue acquisitions over organic growth | Long Island Business News

    [ad_1]

    In Brief:
    • Companies typically pursue growth through organic expansion, acquisitions or a strategic mix of both.
    • builds brand equity and stability but requires patience and disciplined measurement.
    • Acquisitions can rapidly accelerate growth but carry risks tied to culture, operations and integration.
    • The strongest long-term strategies balance steady organic growth with selective, well-aligned acquisitions.

    Consolidation and expansion are a way of life for leaders of mature companies. The aches and pains of early-stage client growth give way to established processes and predictable production that sustain day-to-day cash flow and operations. It can be a comfortable place to be, except for the persistent “grow or die” adage that shadows nearly every leadership conversation.

    The paths to growth, simply put, are organic growth and acquisitions.

    Organic growth is typically the slower of the two choices. It achieves a perpetual trickle of new clients and incremental sales. All systems—advertising, marketing, , content, referrals and direct selling—are designed to attract new customers and drive revenue. Success requires closely monitoring KPIs and other performance metrics to ensure whether growth justifies the effort and expense. Done correctly, organic growth builds brand equity, strengthens culture and reinforces operational discipline. Done poorly, it becomes expensive noise.

    One of the most critical KPIs in evaluating organic growth is . Simply put, you land one new client who spends $50,000 annually, and your median client stays with your company for five years, presenting $250,000 in total revenue.

    Top-line numbers alone can be misleading. If that client contributes 15% to the bottom line, the long-term profit is $37,500. That figure becomes especially revealing when weighed against rising customer acquisition and marketing costs.

    Organic growth also demands patience. Markets fluctuate. Competitive pressures intensify. Client decision cycles lengthen. Leadership must be prepared to continually reinvest in talent, technology, and brand visibility while resisting the temptation to declare victory too early or abandon strategy too soon. Sustainable organic growth is not a campaign—it is a system.

    Acquiring a competitor or a synergistic company is not quite as simple, but it can be a powerful accelerator.  Strategic acquisitions can rapidly increase revenue, expand client bases, enhance capacity, add intellectual property, and secure key talent. When executed effectively, acquisitions compress years of organic effort into months.

    Merger and acquisition (M&A) activity advances the growth timeline. In one fell swoop, companies can gain stature, institutional recognition for funding of further expansion and the critical mass needed to compete at a higher level. Scale matters. Larger organizations often command better vendor terms, attract stronger talent and enjoy increased credibility with enterprise clients.

    That said, acquisitions carry risk. Cultural mismatch, client attrition, operational redundancy and leadership conflict can quickly erode anticipated value. Effective due diligence must extend beyond financial statements to include client concentration, employee dependency, systems compatibility and cultural alignment. Buying revenue without understanding the people and processes behind it is a costly mistake.

    The most successful growth strategies rarely rely on one track alone. Companies that thrive over the long-term balance disciplined organic growth with selective acquisitions aligned to strategic objectives. Organic systems provide stability and predictability. Strategic acquisitions provide acceleration and optionality.

    Leadership’s role is to know when patience is required and when boldness is warranted. Growth for growth’s sake is reckless. Stagnation disguised as comfort is equally dangerous. The mandate is clarity: Understand your numbers, your market, your people and your appetite for risk.

    In the end, growth is not a singular event but a continuous decision. Whether organic, acquisitive, or a thoughtful combination of both, expansion remains the lifeblood of relevance. Companies that recognize this reality—and act with discipline and intent—position themselves not merely to survive, but to lead.

     

    Greg Demetriou is the owner/CEO of Lorraine Gregory Communications in Edgewood.


    [ad_2]

    Opinion

    Source link

  • Apple is ramping up succession plans for CEO Tim Cook and may tap this hardware exec to take over, report says | Fortune

    [ad_1]

    Apple’s board of directors and senior executives have been accelerating succession plans for Tim Cook, sources told the Financial Times.

    After serving as CEO for 14 years, Cook may step down as early as next year, the report said.

    Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, 50-year-old John Ternus, is widely seen as the most likely successor, but no final decisions have been made yet, sources told the FT.

    The engineer joined Apple’s product design team in 2001 and has overseen hardware engineering for most major products the tech company has launched ever since, according to Ternus’ LinkedIn profile.

    He has also played a prominent role during Apple’s most recent keynotes, introducing products like the new iPhone Air. Ternus had been rumored to be Cook’s potential successor, according to previous reports. 

    The company is unlikely to name a new CEO before its next earnings report in late January, and an early-year announcement would allow a new leadership team time to settle in before its annual events, the FT said. 

    The succession preparations have been long-planned and are not related to the company’s current performance, which is expecting strong end-of-year sales, people close to Apple told the FT.

    Apple did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment and declined to provide a comment to the FT.

    The $4 trillion company is expecting year-on-year revenue growth of 10% to 12% for its holiday quarter ending in December, fueled by the release of the iPhone 17 model in September.

    Ternus would take the helm of the tech giant at an important time in its evolution. Although Apple has seen sales success with iPhones and new products like Airpods over the past couple of decades, it has struggled to break into AI and keep up with rivals.

    Instead, Apple has even spending significantly less in AI investments compared to Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft. 

    Apple has been criticized by analysts this year for not having a clear AI strategy. And despite approving a multibillion-dollar budget to run its own models via the cloud in 2026, it was reported in June that Apple is even considering using models from OpenAI and Anthropic to power its updated version of Siri, rather than using technology the company has built in-house. 

    Its AI-enabled Siri, originally slated for 2025, will be delayed until 2026 or later due to a series of technical challenges, the company announced earlier this year.

    Apple has also lost a number of senior AI team members since January, many of whom have joined Meta’s AI and Superintelligence Labs during talent poaching wars this year. The exodus of Apple’s AI execs included Ruoming Pang, former head of Apple’s foundation models and core generative AI team, who joined Meta with a compensation package reportedly worth $200 million.

    The company is also dealing with increased competition from one of its most influential former employees.

    In May, Sam Altman’s OpenAI acquired startup io for about $6.5 billion, bringing in former Apple chief designer Jony Ive to build AI devices. The 58-year-old designer was instrumental in creating the iPhone, iPod, and iPad. 

    Cook, Apple’s former operations chief, turned 65 this month. He has grown the company’s market capitalization to $4 trillion from $350 billion in 2011, when he took over the CEO role from company co-founder Steve Jobs.

    Under Cook, Apple became the first publicly traded company to reach $1 trillion in market capitalization in 2018—then it became the first company to reach $3 trillion in market cap in 2022.

    But more recently, its stock price has been lagging behind Big Tech rivals Alphabet, Nvidia, and Microsoft, though Apple is trading close to an all-time high after strong earnings were reported in October.

    Apple has also dealt with tariff complications as U.S.-China trade tensions have disrupted its supply chain.

    Cook has previously said he’d prefer an internal candidate to replace him, adding that the company has “very detailed succession plans.”

    “I really want the person to come from within Apple,” Cook told singer Dua Lipa last year on her podcast At Your Service.

    [ad_2]

    Nino Paoli

    Source link

  • Businesses are using ‘sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists’ to get staff back to the office

    Businesses are using ‘sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists’ to get staff back to the office

    [ad_1]

    Bosses have tried everything to convince staff they’ll be happier working in the office than at home, from free lunches to subsidized commutes. When that hasn’t worked, they’ve tried putting their foot down.

    Now, exasperated employers want to know what makes their workers tick.

    Neil Murray, CEO of Work Dynamics at real estate services group Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), indicated businesses were examining every angle of a worker’s brain to find the right formula to get them back to the office. 

    Most bosses want workers back under their noses, at least in a hybrid model, but are struggling with resistance from employees who have grown used to flexibility. 

    Murray’s unit consults significant corporations on their real estate footprint, covering everything from a space’s sustainability to workers’ interactions with that space. The latter is becoming increasingly crucial to businesses before they shell out a fortune on Grade A office space.

    Changing space

    He describes a new approach to designing these spaces as “a moment in time of reinvention of space” that emphasizes human behavior.

    “Sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists. You get an input, and everybody has slightly different opinions,” Murray told Fortune.

    Murray says this way of thinking has shifted drastically since the COVID-19 pandemic, and businesses now need to consider how their office spaces can benefit employees. 

    “You completely shift that paradigm and think, ‘Why do I need space in the first place if I can conduct my business virtually? What’s its purpose?’ And then you need those inputs from various people to try and think about the psychology of what’s going to make people comfortable.”

    The Future of Real Estate, a new report from JLL published Thursday, looks at the requirements of corporate office space following the AI revolution. Companies will likely focus more on the social impact of spaces, prioritizing “wellness, hospitality, and entertainment,” the authors say. 

    But that doesn’t mean an array of attractive workspace additions, like gyms and cinemas, is the answer to increasing office attendance.

    JLL’s Murray says his group has tested every possible amenity that might entice workers back to the office, including free lunches or coffee machines. However, there isn’t a silver bullet.

    “The most attractive amenity to bring people back is other people,” he says.

    Creating an office that brings them together, Murray says, is becoming a generational battle.

    The psychological differences between Gen Z workers and their older colleagues are emerging as one of the factors behind a reevaluation of office space. Murray says attending university in a remote setting before graduating into hybrid work has altered young workers’ needs compared with their predecessors. 

    “There’s bound to be some collective psychological differences in that generation in terms of expectations,” Murray said.

    Office space

    Beyond generational- and incentive-based considerations, Murray says businesses who are taking the stick approach to bringing staff into the office aren’t seeing much success.

    “The ones that try to be prescriptive and try to mandate three days, we’re seeing pretty much exactly the same attendance for the ones that aren’t pushing a mandate, and it’s settling at that just under three days a week.”

    Murray says that businesses are typically settling on a three-day hybrid model, adding that younger and later career workers spend more time in the office than mid-career workers. 

    Speaking to Fortune in February, Murray’s colleague, EMEA CEO Sue Aspey Price, said companies asking staff to come back to the office four days a week were doing so with the expectation they would only return for three days.

    Aspey Price says this because changes to office space requirements led to a downsizing through the COVID-19 pandemic.

    “If everybody followed the policies that are being put out there, a lot of companies don’t have anywhere near enough space,” she said.

    “If every working team came in on those days, the chances of them having enough space are almost non-existent.”

    Murray thinks offices will see a return of designated workspaces for employees, countering the widespread uptake of hot-desking, even if it means workers alternating days at their desks.

    “You think about the notion of everybody moving toward total unassigned, well where’s the ‘me’ space in there, and where’s your own personality?”

    [ad_2]

    Ryan Hogg

    Source link