03/12/2018

Should an Exiting CEO Stick Around?

There are benefits to keeping the former exec around

A longtime association executive will eventually leave. But how far away should a former CEO go?

A recent article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review challenges some of the conventional wisdom around the departure of nonprofit founders or long-term CEOs. In “Making Founder Successions Work,” three experts from the consultancy the Bridgespan Group conducted surveys and interviews about such departures, and found that there are benefits to letting the former executive stick around for a while.

“To a surprising extent, transitions that extend the role of a nonprofit founder yield the best results,” they write. “In fact, nearly half of all founders who step down continue to bring their knowledge, relationships, and passion to bear for the organizations they started.” And it turns out that keeping a role for the founder is a more popular option (45 percent) than a clean break (31 percent). And among long-term CEOs, more organizations reported having a successful transition (80 percent) when the CEO stuck around than when the CEO didn’t (64 percent). The study also found evidence of longer tenures for the successor and revenue growth when the former exec plays a continuing role.

Please select this link for the complete article from Associations Now.