Board Leadership Succession Planning

Explore findings from NACD’s 2024 Public Company Board Practices and Oversight Survey related to board leadership succession planning. The data was gathered from directors who serve on the boards of publicly traded companies. Additional survey data on this topic is provided in this Data Pack.

Access the full 2024 survey here.

Key Insights

When it comes to finding the next board leaders, boards are confident. Most respondents indicated that there are current directors that can effectively fulfill leadership roles if any of the board or committee chairs left the board tomorrow. The majority of responses indicate that the performances of the board chair, lead independent director, and committee chairs are acceptable.

However, a closer look at board succession planning suggests that many boards could strengthen their practices. Most boards rotate leadership roles as needed, without specific intervals and established parameters. As can be seen in the Data Pack, only 29 percent of respondents have developed or reviewed a formal board leadership succession plan over the past 12 months, and even fewer (27%) have established transition processes, such as having current committee chairs serve as mentors to potential successors.