New generation of CEOs: Young people, far from being "strong managers," are massively leading trillion-dollar businesses

Illustrative image. Source: Getty Images

According to an analysis covering the 1500 largest publicly traded companies, approximately one out of nine CEOs was replaced last year. This is the highest rotation level since 2010 – when the US was just emerging from the financial crisis, writes The Wall Street Journal.

And the trend is not slowing down: already in January and early February, dozens of companies announced new appointments. Among them are Walmart, Procter & Gamble, and Lululemon Athletica. On one day in early February, new leaders were named at Disney, PayPal, and HP. Last week, the supermarket chain Kroger appointed a former top manager from Walmart as its head.

The scale of changes looks like a major experiment in corporate leadership. Companies are forced to react to the rapid growth of artificial intelligence, the disruption of old and well-established business practices, and an unstable economic and geopolitical situation.

According to James Citrin, head of the global CEO search practice at international consulting firm Spencer Stuart, companies are now in a new environment, so old management schemes no longer guarantee success. If a leader does not demonstrate rapid progress in both operational activities and investor relations, boards of directors become even less patient than before.

Павялічыць

Age of S&P 500 company CEOs at the time of appointment, by years. Source: Spencer Stuart

According to Spencer Stuart's analysis, new leaders are, on average, younger – their average age is 54, which is two years younger compared to appointments a year earlier. Furthermore, over 80% of the 168 new CEOs appointed in 2025 became leaders for the first time and had no prior experience managing public companies or other large independent enterprises. Two-thirds of them had never before served on corporate boards.

However, as the publication notes, the lack of experience in managing an independent public company does not always mean insufficient preparedness. According to Cindy Jamison, who serves on the boards of directors of major American restaurant chain Darden Restaurants and international chemical-food company International Flavors & Fragrances, younger leaders are more aligned with the new reality. The situation is changing very radically and irreversibly, so people who have worked "on the front lines," at the very center of events, and made complex decisions in practice are needed.

In cases where companies did appoint older and more experienced leaders, it was often due to crisis circumstances. According to Spencer Stuart experts, more and more companies last year chose board members for operational management – usually as a temporary solution, which indicates failures in succession planning. In the technology, media, and telecommunications sectors, such appointments accounted for 15% of all new CEOs.

At the same time, as the WSJ writes, the proportion of women in CEO positions decreased. Only 9% of new appointments last year went to women – compared to 15% a year earlier. Overall, women hold about 9% of CEO positions in the 1500 largest US public companies included in the S&P 1500 index. In the main US stock index – S&P 500 – there are currently 46 women CEOs.

Thus, as the WSJ concludes, the American corporate sector has entered a period of large-scale leadership renewal, where younger executives are increasingly taking charge of trillion-dollar companies, many of whom are leading public corporations for the first time and have to make decisions in unprecedentedly complex conditions.

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