On the Russian market, the rate of CEO turnover significantly exceeds that of Western countries both in public and private sector. For more into the reasons behind this phenomenon and the portrait of a typical successor in leading Russian companies, read more on the Talent Equity Institute’s research.
Succession in Russian Business
CEO Succession – the succession of leadership within a company – has been a prevalent topic of discussion in developed markets since the 1970s, and has become central for the entire global economy over the last decade. There are several reasons for this: a significant decrease in duration of the average CEO’s term in office; more frequent chief executive turnover; and disgraceful corporate scandals with failed CEOs squandering millions of dollars of shareholder value. The central themes of the discussion on leadership succession include: Which candidates deliver better results – internal or external? Who should select a successor, and how should one be selected? How to prepare a future CEO and transition responsibilities? Thanks to quantitative and qualitative research, original academic theories have emerged in the last decade explaining various aspects of succession. Consultants have, in turn, created and actively promoted practical models for CEO succession planning and implementation.
How applicable are theories and practical recommendations, primarily formulated out of the experience of developed markets, to the reality of Russian business? How does CEO succession in Russian companies differ from global trends? In seeking answers to these questions, the Talent Equity Institute conducted a comprehensive analysis of CEO replacements in 160 leading (as determined by 2012 revenue) Russian companies from 2003 to 2013.
Some of the study's findings
- On the Russian market, the rate of CEO turnover significantly exceeds that of Western countries (one in three CEOs doesn’t last a full year). The worse the economy, the more likely companies areto replace the CEO.
- Poor corporate management leads to more CEO replacements in public companies than in private ones. Additionally, if there is more than one business owner, the probability that the CEO will be replaced increases. These companies also frequently recruit external candidates.
- In Russian practice, social capital (circle of acquaintances) is more important than management experience, company or industry knowledge, or business education. Managers in possession of this social capital within the circle of the same business owner (group insiders) demonstrate more stable results.
- A market of strong CEOs doesn’t really exist – only a select few succeed in becoming leaders of similarly sized companies. Indirectly, this also indicates a high percentage of demotions: ex-CEOs often prefer to remain in their own companies, even at a lower position, because they understand that finding a similar vacancy on the openmarket is extremely challenging.
- Business owners deliver the best results in business management. Among appointed CEOs, group insiders delivered the most stable results, while external candidates fared the worst (they oftentimes lack knowledge about the company, industry, or resource network; in addition, outsiders are most often brought in during a crisis situation, in which they fail to radically change the situation in the company).
Research Results
70% of the companies from our sample have replaced their CEO in the last decade, 24% have done it twice, and 22% have three or more times. As shown in Figure 1, from 2004 to 2007, the number of CEO replacements increased by nearly 80%. After 2007, an annual cycle of replacement manifested itself, with a 30% variance. The highest number of replacements occurred during the 2009 crisis; in general, companies are more likely to replace their CEOs in times of crisis. 2009 was the most volatile year over the previous decade for the American and European markets as well. In the US, 12% of companies replaced their CEOs; in Europe and Asia, 15% did; and in Russia, a full 18% of companies replaced their chief executives.
Figure 1
It's worth noting that at the end of the 1st quarter 2014, we had already registered 12 cases of CEO replacement. If thatpace is maintained, 2014 could lead the decade in number of replaced CEOs, which would be circumstantial evidence pointing to the existence of a Russian economic crisis.
Industry Specifics of Succession
CEO succession statistics vary distinctly by industry; several industries prove to be more volatile with regards to the number of replacements made, as well as the number of companies that have made replacements. The absolute leader across the board is the telecommunications industry: every company in our sample had replaced their CEO, with an overall average of 3.7 CEOs per company. Rostelecom and Vimpelcom replaced their CEOs 5 and 6 times, respectively. One possible explanation for such instability in the industry is that shareholders grew accustomed to the explosive growth they experienced in the early 2000s; following this, they became dissatisfied with slow growth or decline in a saturated market, and sought out a corporate savoir in the form of a new CEO. These findings hold in international markets as well; in all countries, the telecommunications industry is the leader in quantity of CEO replacements.
At the other extreme, relatively stable industries include pharmaceuticals, construction, agro-industry, and consumer goods production, which are all characterized by a low number of CEO replacements. A possible explanation for this is that there is still a large quantity of medium-sized private companies in the industry: oftentimes the head of the company is also a founding owner who hasn’t begun the process of transferring his responsibilities to a successor and, accordingly, hasn’t managed to make any mistakes.
Industries such as retail, oil and gas, computer distribution, and IT are characterized by the concept of a “bad replacement”. That is, there are relatively few companies, as compared with other industries, that replace CEOs; however, when they do make a replacement, they do it not once, but instead “sort through” a series of chief executives.
Shareholder Structure and Succession
In our opinion, the structure of ownership shows an overwhelming influence on the quantity of CEO replacements. We separated out the following kinds of companies by shareholder's equity:
- A state-owned, non-public company;
- A public company with the state as the majority shareholder;
- A public company with one controlling non-state shareholder;
- A public company with two or more non-state shareholders;
- A private company with one controlling non-state shareholder;
- A private company with several non-state shareholders
Given the stability of political power over the last 10 years, as well as the consistency of personnel under V.V. Putin, it would be logical to assume that state-owned companies (both public and non-public) would have the steadiest leadership. However, as seen in Figure 3, over 80% of state companies have replaced their CEOs over the last 10 years. Despite this, the average number of CEOs per company is still lower than the market average, which could be an indicator of relative leadership stability in government companies.
Public companies with two or more principal shareholders are even more volatile with regards to quantity of CEOs replaced. It’s possible that with each CEO appointment, owners are trying to gain more control – if only by the removal of another shareholder’s protégée in favor of their own. This precedent – the more shareholders, the more CEOs replaced – holds true in private (non-public) companies as well: businesses with multiple owners change CEOs, on average, 2 times over 10 years. Only slightly more than half of private companies with one majority shareholder replaced their chief executive in the past 10 years, and those that have, have done so merely 1.7 times.
It is revealing that public companies change CEOs more frequently than private companies, even though public companies, with more advanced systems of corporate governance, should, theoretically, make better decisions regarding replacements. We analyzed whether or not the presence of at least two independent directors (which indicates a reasonably developed level of corporate governance) affected the number of times the CEO was replaced, the type of replacement made, and other characteristics. Companies with and without independent directors demonstrated identical trends, indicating that weak influence by the board of directors and a weak system of corporate governance affect the overall results of the replacement process.
Portrait of a Successor
Demographics
What does the average CEO successor of a leading Russian company look like? His average age is 45, which makes Russian successors some of the youngest in the world (in the US, a similar successor is 53 years old, and in Japan, over 60, though the global trend is that CEOs are getting younger and younger). In Russia, the youngest CEOs can be found in banking (39.5 years old), and the oldest in the oil and gas industry (51 years old).
Among chief executives appointed to head leading Russian companies in the last 10 years, only 4 were women (around 1.4%), and only one of them led the company for more than 1.5 years. Globally, there are more women at the tops of companies, but not by much – among the CEOs of companies on the Fortune 500 list, 4.4% are women (in Russia,currently, 1% of CEOs from the top 160 businesses are women).
2006 marked the beginning of a trend where in top Russian companies attracted expatriates to fill senior positions. The expatriate CEO trend grew from 2006 to 2009, reached a peak during the 2009 crisis, and sharply plummeted during the post-crisis period. Overall, the proportion of expat CEOs over the last decade did not exceed 9%, and roughly half of CEOs brought in from abroad were leading companies in the retail industry – an industry relatively new for the Russian market, where the country has not yet developed domestic professionals. Terms of office for foreign CEOs are short – they last, on average, 2.4 years – which is just enough time to share best practices. Further management is then carried out by Russian executives.
Industry Experience
Over 70% of CEO successors had work experience in the same industry to which the company belonged, and had worked in the industry for an average of 16 years. In addition, 30% of successors had experience in an additional two industries.
A unique Russian distinction is the proportion of successors that have work experience in the government or security agencies. 25% had work experience in one or both of these sectors; for 14%, civil service became the basis of their professional career; and 3% had no general work experience in business prior to their appointment as CEO. In addition to civil service, the financial industry is another unique “industry donor” – every 5th Russian CEO held work experience in a bank and/or insurance and investment company.
In addition to civil service, the financial industry is another unique “industry donor” – every 5th Russian CEO held work experience in a bank and/or insurance and investment company.
The CEO who spent his whole professional career at one company – the so-called “lifer” – occupies about 10% of the Russian market. Analogous CEOs on the American S&P 500 list occupy about 20%, but as you get closer to the top 100 companies, that proportion grows to 28%. In 1998, the figure was close to 40%.
Functional Experience
Logically, for an economy focused on natural resource extraction and heavy industry, 33% of Russian CEOs had functional experience in manufacturing. Generally, they started as engineers, and during their tenure grew to be directors of operations or of major assets (factories, mines), where their technical knowledge and production skills were of paramount significance.
The second most common functional experience came from former financial managers (26%). In fact, CEOs grow out of the finance function on the Russian market almost as frequently as they do on the American market (27%).
Only 17% of CEOs in our sample had direct work experience in commercial functions (sales and marketing), as opposed to 45% of CEOs in leading American companies. Only 3% of consulting natives managed to advance to the chief executive position (compared to 6% of the US), but they still outperformed former HR and IT professionals, who constitute only 1% of the CEO population from our sample. These cases are certainly the exception.
Work Experience of the Chief Executive
Is it essential to have previous experience as a CEO to lead one of the top Russian companies? According to our research, it is not. More than 60% of successors rose to the chief executive position from the CEO-1 level, and 45% had no experience as a CEO at all. Another 7% moved to the top position from their roles as heads of daughter companies, 5% were civil servants, and 2% rose from the CEO-2 position. Chief executives that have work experience as a CEO (even if the company is much smaller in size) occupy 25% of the Russian market, which far exceeds the 7% of analogous CEOs on the American market.
In our sample of 160 leading companies, only 5 people led two companies on the list whose owners were not connected with one another over the past decade (and two of these “double CEOs” were expats). This is further proof that a market of leading CEOs does not exist – each is given one chance to prove himself.
Business Education
17% of CEO successors have MBAs, and 7.5% received their degrees from top world business schools. 8% received their degrees from universities outside of the top 10, and 4% graduated from Russian business schools. For the Russian market, this is a reasonably high statistic, though not when compared to the American CEO market, where about 40% of CEOs have an MBA (and more than half of those that have one graduated from Harvard Business School).
Succession and Performance
The average term of office for successors to the CEO position from our sample was three years. Within that, every third (!) CEO that left the company did so within a year of their appointment. To put this in perspective, CEOs in the US stay in their positions for an average of 6.3 years – two times longer than their Russian counterparts, even though two of fiveUS CEOs leave the company within the first 18 months of their term. Is this short duration an indicator of poor preparation and low performance of Russian chief executives, or do they leave for other reasons? We tried to answer this question.
Types of Successors
Academic literature distinguishes between two basic types of successors. The first is the insider: an internal candidate who, at the time of appointment to CEO, has been working at the company for no less than two years. The second is the outsider: an external candidate brought in from another company. The strengths and weakness of both kinds are well known: insiders better know the company, its specificities, and its culture; owners have already had the opportunity to evaluate their performance. For outsiders, lack of knowledge about the company can be beneficial – they don't have any social obligations to their colleagues, they look at the company with fresh eyes and aren't afraid of change, and generally have an impressive track record. In developed markets, the appointment of insiders is more widespread (from 70% in the European markets to 96% in Japan).
In analyzing cases of Russian succession, we discovered that it was necessary to delineate a few more categories. Our market is characterized by a high concentration of capital: the assets of one shareholder often vary with respect to size, industry, and stages of growth. In general, owners are surrounded by a network of trusted managers who are appointed to manage assets, depending on the needs of the current situation. We call these chief executives group insiders.
Group insiders bring to the table established contact with the owner, but also a fresh look at a company where they, most likely, did not previously work.
There is another subset of group insiders – the so-called colonizers. This group manages the assets during the time oftransition to the new owner. Generally, the colonizers’ task, as opposed to group insiders, is not to develop the business; it is to, as quickly as possible, scout, clean up the team, and report back to the owner.
Another type of CEO-successor is the owner who returns to operations management (which happens often in crisis orother similar situations).
And, finally, the final subset: chief executives that are descendents of the founders.
If you look at the breakdown of successor-types listed above,then you can see that the percentage of insiders (36%) in Russia is two times lower than that of developed markets, and is practically equal to the number of outsiders (32%). On the one hand, this indicates relatively weak mechanisms of developing future managers from within. On the other hand, frequent transitions of ownership from one hand to the otherare, understandably, an indication of lack of trust in internalmanagement by the new owners.
The percentage of group insiders and colonizers combined is 24%, meaning that in a quarter of cases an owner has a manager from his own network leading the business.
In 8% of cases, the owners pick up the business. Of those, only in four (!) cases (not percent) was the business managed by a member of the second generation (i.e. sons or daughters) – in the remaining cases, the owners themselves came back to manage the company. Russian owners are exceptionally reluctant to give their businesses to their children, potentially because of the instability and even danger of running a business in Russia. According to surveys, owners would rather sell the family business than try to give it to their children.
What factors influence which kind of successor is chosen? First of all, we looked at how the breakdown changed annually (Figure 6). The only year when the number of outsiders exceeded the aggregate number of insiders and group insiders was 2009, during the height of the crisis. It’s possible that in crises, owners prefer to look for managers from outside, as the situation requires a radical restructuring of the business. Interestingly, in 2013 there were also several cases where external CEOs were brought in, which indirectly demonstrates how this statistic directly correlates to instability in the economy. The crisis of 2009 also became the sole reason for the overrepresentation of group insiders over insidersover the entire decade.
Is there a connection between the structure of ownership in the company, and the type of successor chosen? Looking at Figure 7, we can discern what kinds of companies gravitate towards one kind of successor or another by observing the standard deviation. Public companies with state ownership bring in, by far, the most outsiders (55% as compared to the 32% average). Public companies with state ownership are the cream of the crop in Russian business. They are leading businesses where the chief executive position is under the scrutiny of not just the business community, but also political powers; therefore, companies try to appoint chief executives who are either close to the circle of power, or who have already proven themselves as CEO of another leading business. Non-public companies with state ownership attract 12%fewer outsiders than public companies with state ownership. This is potentially due to the fact that many of these non-public companies are smaller in size, and are therefore simply not attractive enough for major candidates.
Public companies with two or more principal shareholders brought in the second-highest number of outsiders. As we mentioned earlier, this is one of the most unstable forms of ownership structure as it relates to succession. In the case ofa power tug-of-war between two principal owners, preference could be given to an externally recruited CEO: a foreigner to both owners and therefore, theoretically, neutral. The number of insiders ascending to the top in this variety of company is the lowest of all – 14%, as compared to 36% - because insiders are inevitably suspected of giving preference to one owner or another.
Public companies with one principal shareholder prefer to bet on insiders or group insiders; they bring in the fewest outsiders of all (a mere 16%). More often than not, these companies belong to a larger business empire that includes several large enterprises, which provides a potentially large playing field to move around group-insider managers.
The cases of private companies also support the hypothesis that the more principal shareholders there are, the more likely a company is to bring in outsiders: private companies with several principal shareholders are 1.5 times more likely to bring in outsiders than private companies with one majority shareholder.
Types of Successors and Duration of Term in Office
The average successor’s term in office from our sample is three years. The colonizers enjoyed the shortest tenures at 2.1 years. This makes sense, as their task is to bring a new business into the shareholder-purchaser structure of ownership, which takes, on average, 2 years.
The next shortest tenures come from the insiders, with an average term of 2.7 years. They lag behind outsiders at 3.1 years, which is an idiosyncrasy that is extremely atypical for developed markets. Group insiders last for an average of 3.3 years, and company owners clock in at 4.5 years. It’s unclear what accounts for the leadership of group insiders – is it their higher performance, or that their existing social connections grant them a certain credibility from owners for a longer period of time?
There is yet another paradoxical trend – the inverse relationship between duration of time spent working at the company before appointment as CEO, and the duration of the following term in office. In Figure 8 you can see that those who have worked in the company for more than 15 years rarely exceed the average statistic – they spend three years in the CEO position, whereas those who have spent less than 15 years in the company are much more likely to hold the chief executive position for over 3 years. A closer analysis of concrete cases helps us to understand that chief executives who previously worked in the company for more than 15 years had, generally, begun work at the lowest manufacturing positions, and gradually grew within the company. Eventually their experience and loyalty pays off, and they are given a chance to test out the role of CEO (especially in cases like unexpected leadership change). However, as we can see, they generally don’t succeed – though it’s also possible that in these cases they are simply being used as a temporary replacement for about a year.
The average insider spends 11 years at the company before their appointment, which is significantly lower than their American and European counterparts. Group insiders and colonizers enjoy a much shorter path to the position of CEO;they, on average, spend 8 to 8.5 years within the one owner’s structure.
Reasons for CEO Change
What kinds of triggers prompt CEO replacement; what summons the need for a new CEO?
The primary cause is the need to restructure the business: the necessity of increasing operational efficiency, a fundamental change in strategy, new product launches or expansion into new regions, preparing for acquisition or sale, IPO. In 22% of cases, this is the formal reason for replacing the chief executive. In 18% of cases, the CEO is replaced after a change in owner, or during the exacerbation of conflicts between owners. Poor results is only the 3rd most common reason for replacement (occurring in 16% of cases), which supports the hypothesis that the connection between succession and performance is weak.
During our search, we found another trigger – the “network trigger,” when the replacement of a CEO is prompted by the interests of high-powered, influential figures, mostly politically connected (14%). This trigger is more common than even the most seemingly conventional – voluntary departure to another position or retirement (12%).
In 11% of cases, the owner decides to retire and hands over the reigns to someone else (as a rule, this happens when the company has been stable enough for a long time).
And, finally, 7% of cases are related to a chief executive’s promotion within the group, and the need to fill his position after his departure.
Models of CEO Accession
Conventional literature describes several models for transferring responsibility. The first is the relay, when the departingCEO hands the reigns over to an insider who was, theoretically, specially prepared for the new role. The second model – a competition between several internal candidates – is called the horse race. The most well-known, documented case of the horse race is Jack Welch’s appointment to the CEO position at GE, when three internal candidates were considered for the role.
The classic relay formally occurred in 32% of cases from our sample, but deeper analysis into individual cases showed that Russian companies very rarely properly trained successors. The existing CEO, oftentimes, had no desire to leave (thanks to the weakly-developed CEO market) and didn't invest in preparing his replacement. Despite this, successors who took part in a relay change had a slightly longer tenure (3.3 years) than average, which points to this model’s viability.
In 24% of cases, companies simply looked for a CEO on the external market (outsiders last three years, on average). In 14% of cases, the successor is explicitly sought out within an internal group. In 7% of cases, the owner decides to come back to manage the business.
In 7% of cases, a so-called “landing” is administered. This model is characteristic to the Russian market. In a landing, a senior candidate (or his relative) is appointed CEO. For example, in the last few years, candidates from second generations of politically influential families have been appointed CEOs of leading state-connected companies.
The horse-race model is not very popular in Russia, and can be attributed to only 6% of cases. It's possible that the reason for this is because open competition is not encouraged in Russian culture. In addition, this form of succession hasn’t demonstrated very good results – the winners of horse-races remain in their post for an average of only two years.
Another notable form of succession we deemed worth mentioning is the seat warming. In this model, a temporary candidate is appointed CEO with the understanding that he will vacate the seat upon arrival of a specific successor (after an average of 1.2 years).
Occasionally, an ex-CEO will return to manage the company after they have already been the chief executive (3% of cases). On average, he remains in this position for 2.7 years, and this generally happens during particularly difficult times for the company.
Models of CEO Departure
In developed markets, the primary reason for a CEO's departure is his own decision to leave; the second most common cause is poor financial performance by the company; and the third is the restructuring and reorganization of the business. In Russia, appointed CEOs rarely resign on their own initiative.
In our sample, 39% of cases of departure were due to dismissal, and 28% were due to demotion. The latter appears to be a particularly Russian feature; demotion of a CEO in developed markets is an exceedingly rare occurrence. Our explanation for the fluidity of Russian management is multifaceted. On the one hand, it has to do with the underdeveloped market of senior executives in Russia, and the paramount significance of social capital for executive-level appointments. On the other, those who have held top positions at leading companies hold prestige and allure, even if they’re not currently in that position. Another reason why replaced CEOs are prepared to swallow their pride and accept demotion has to do with the importance of social capital in the Russian economy: in an environment where private shareholders dominate multi-industry groups, former CEOs don’t want to fall out of a network that grants them accessto management positions in other group assets. Furthermore, dismissal and demotion don’t necessarily indicate poor performance on the part of the CEO – as we have repeatedly pointed out, succession is weakly correlated with performance. Less than half (40%) of dismissed CEOs were fired because of poor performance. In 50% of cases where a CEO was fired, he was replaced by an external candidate (outsider).
In 20% of departures, an owner-CEO chooses to leave or sell the business. In 8% of cases, the ex-CEO remains with the company, but moves up within the group or transfers to a more attractive asset. Only 6% (!) of CEOs voluntarily resign to take another position in business, the same quantity retire, and 5% leave to continue their career in government service.
CEO Performance
To evaluate the performance of various successors and models of transferring responsibility, we needed to first measurethe success of the company under the management of a one concrete CEO.
To determine the performance of a company we used the EBITDA percent rate of change (or in the case of inaccessible accounting – revenue) for the period of a specific CEO’s tenure at the head of the company. After calculating the average EBITDA percent rate of change/revenue, it was compared with the average rate of change in the industry: if the company exceeded the industry average growth, then it was assigned an “above average” result; if it fell short, a “below average” result; and an “average” result for stable, market-average growth.
It turns out that the most successful CEOs were the business owners. These company leaders delivered below-average results in only 13% of cases, and in 33% of cases they led the market. This finding is consistent with the results of studies conducted in other countries – CEO-proprietors, on average, perform better than appointed CEOs. They possess a deep understanding of their business, the company, the industry, the country; they have a powerful network of contacts, high motivation, and the freedom to make unorthodox management decisions.
The second most successful successors were the relay-prepared insiders, who often deliver better results, but also frequently lag behind the market.
Outsiders deliver the lowest results – this group had the most “below average” ratings. However, as we saw above, there is a reasonable explanation for this. Outsiders are specifically brought in during times of crisis, when the financial wellbeing of the company is already suffering. This category of managers also lacks both the traditional knowledge about the company and the industry, as well as the factors so critical to conducting business in Russia – a resource network, and confidence and support from shareholders.
Group insiders with resource networks and confidence from shareholders demonstrate the most stable results (the highest quantity of average values). This can be seen in Figure 10, which presents the performance associated with various forms of succession – the pre-selected group insiders demonstrate market-average-level results 72% of the time. The explanation for this could be the same as the features that make group-insiders so attractive: generally, this is a manager who has proven his effectiveness in other assets, and has attained the favor of the owner, who is afraid of losing him.They are not inclined towards risk or global change, and their task is to preserve the value of the business and prevent it from decreasing. As we can see, they do this pretty well.
As mentioned above, the most successful CEO-successors are owners of the business, but returning owners also demonstrate 12% higher results in the “below average” category than the overall category of CEO-proprietors (Figure 9). In other words, the “second time around” is usually less successful.
Relay-prepared candidates also demonstrate decent results – 29% above average, 24% below.
Outsiders don’t look so bad when compared to network candidates via landing (who received “below average” marks 38% of the time) and winners of the horse-race (who only achieved “above average” results 11% of the time).
Does industry experience have an influence on the effectiveness of the successor? As seen in Figure 11, a paradoxical situation has developed. The results of outsiders without industry experience are equal to those of group insiders with industry experience. In addition, they exhibit a higher range of results – many are successful, but many are unsuccessful. This is likely related to the fact that outsiders without industry experience are more inclined to take risks and introduce changes that were successful in their previous industries. Such strategies are uncertain: they can result in success or failure. Group insiders with industry experience are more prepared to take risks than group insiders without industry experience. Perhaps, due to this experience, they feel more sure of themselves in the CEO role and, therefore, in taking risks.
What is the demographic portrait of a successful CEO-successor? He is 43 years old (slightly younger than the overall average age of successors), and he remains in his position for an average of 3.4 years (slightly longer than the average three years). By these standards, even the more successful CEOs aren’t guaranteed a long tenure as chief executive.
Regarding industry experience: only 15% of successful CEOs have work experience in government structures, as compared with the overall average of 25%. Similarly, only 10% worked in financial institutions (banks, insurance companies) ascompared with the overall average of 19%. The number of successful CEOs with MBAs didn't differ from the overall sample – 17% – which, in theory, could indicate a lack of correlation. Previous experience as a CEO also did not have any influence; among the successful CEO-successors, 16% more had no previous experience as a CEO (60% as opposed to 44% on average). Subsequently, to be a successful CEO, it is not necessary for insiders to have worked at the company for very long: successful insider-successors spend 2 times less time at the company before their appointment (6.5 years) than insiders overall (11 years).
This article was published a part of the seventh issue of Talent Equity Newsletter "Succession in Russian Business".
To read all other journal issues, please follow the link to TE Newsletters page.
