India Inc sees highest CEO turnover since pandemic as boards act faster on performance
A major concern highlighted by the study is India Inc’s stark diversity gap. Only six out of 109 CEOs appointed since 2020 were women.
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India Inc is witnessing a sharp rise in corner-office departures, with 16 chief executives from BSE 200 companies stepping down in the first half of 2025, a pace last seen during the height of the Covid-19 crisis in 2020. The Spencer Stuart CEO Transition Study, which reviewed appointments between January 2020 and July 2025, found that nearly 40% of these leadership changes occurred within three years, signalling a period of heightened scrutiny and accelerated decision-making by corporate boards.
As per a report by The Economic Times, James Citrin, chair of Spencer Stuart’s CEO practice and co-leader of its board practice, said the turbulence may give the impression that business leadership has never been more complex, but the churn is not out of line with global patterns. He stated that boards and CEOs have expressed similar sentiments during every major disruption, from the dotcom crash to the pandemic and now AI-driven and geopolitical uncertainties.
Citrin informed that the fundamental shift lies in how boards respond, they are acting more swiftly, enforcing tougher performance standards and taking a more deliberate approach to assessing whether future leaders should come from within the organisation or be hired from outside. He noted that Indian boards today are prioritising candidates who can combine a solid grasp of their business with the ability to steer organisations through rapid technological change, particularly in AI, analytics and automation, as per the report by The Economic Times.
He said that while board expectations have evolved, the core attributes of successful leaders remain unchanged, emphasising thought leadership and people leadership as enduring requirements. He added that although leadership styles and external pressures may vary, these central qualities continue to define effective CEOs.
Discussing CEO search mandates in the age of AI, Citrin said he is currently handling eight global CEO mandates and that AI features prominently in all of them. He stated that boards are seeking leaders who can understand the strategic implications of AI and adapt quickly. Deep technical expertise is essential only in select cases, he explained, citing his work on the search for Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan. In most other situations, the ability to learn rapidly and reinvent the business has become non-negotiable.
A major concern highlighted by the study is India Inc’s stark diversity gap. Only six out of 109 CEOs appointed since 2020 were women. Citrin said the issue stems not from board reluctance but from the limited number of women entering major profit-and-loss roles that traditionally form the CEO pipeline. He said that boards must view this as a long-term challenge and ensure that more women gain the 15 years of general-management experience needed to build a sustainable talent pool, as reported in The Economic Times.
The study also found that CEOs of firms described as family-owned and professionally run outperformed those of both family-owned, family-run firms and professionally run companies with no family ownership. Citrin said the data reinforces the widely held belief that the ideal scenario combines a family’s long-term vision and investment appetite with a genuinely professional management structure. He added that expecting promoter families in India to remain completely hands-off is unrealistic, emphasising that the real challenge is establishing productive engagement with professional CEOs through structured board processes.
When asked about the future of Indian-origin leadership in global corporations, Citrin said the rise of Indian-American CEOs is expected to continue, fuelled by India’s rigorous education system and the US technology ecosystem’s embrace of such expertise. He traced the trend from its beginnings in the airline sector in the 1990s to banking with figures like Vikram Pandit, consumer goods with Indra Nooyi, and now technology with leaders such as Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai and Shantanu Narayen. He noted that the success is self-reinforcing, pointing out that one Hyderabad school has produced the CEOs of Microsoft, Adobe, Mastercard and Procter & Gamble.
