The big churn: More India Inc top bosses hitting exit button post Covid

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

As many as 110 managing directors or chief executives who were also on the boards of NSE-listed companies quit in the first 10 months of 2023, according to data compiled for ET by primeinfobase.com.

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The number is the same as that in 2022 for the first 10 months, and these two consecutive years mark the highest CEO/MD turnover for the January-October period in the past decade. In comparison, in 2014, there were 65 CEO/MD departures in the first 10 months, and 79 during the entire calendar year.

The numbers are in line with global trends. According to the Global CEO turnover Index by leadership advisory and executive search firm Russell Reynolds Associates, global annual CEO rate turnover fell from 10% in 2020 to 8.9% in 2021.
As countries moved past the pandemic, it reached a five-year high of 11.2% in 2022 and remained high in the first three quarters of 2023.

In India, there were 96 CEO/MD exits in the first 10 months of 2020, which dropped to 93 in the corresponding period in 2021, according to the primeinfobase.com data.

A majority of the exits in 2023 were classified as resignations, the data revealed. Turnover numbers through the years have been cyclical, but overall, on an upward trajectory.

Board members, corporate governance advisory firms and hiring experts attribute the churn to a variety of factors including higher expectations and declining tolerance for underperformance in the hot seat; an increasingly complex and challenging business environment fraught