Book Review: 'The CEO Next Door' by Elena L Botelho & Kim R. Powell.

AuthorBrownstein, Howard Brod

The selection of the company's CEO is one of the most fundamental duties of the board of directors, yet recent research suggests that many boards use incorrect criteria in the selection process.

Conventional wisdom has it that "a successful CEO is a charismatic six-foot-tall white man with a degree from a top university, who is a strategic visionary with a seemingly direct-to-the-top career path and the ability to make perfect decisions under pressure."

However, the authors--partners at the ghSmart consulting firm, which supports Fortune 500 boards on board succession---note that over an extended period, about 25% of CEO departures were involuntary, suggesting that the process by which those CEOs had been selected or retained was likely flawed. They cite a 2014 PwC study of the world's 2,500 largest companies showing that such CEO...

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