Article written by Lisa McCraken Director, Senior Living Research & Development, Ziegler and Featured in Ziegler Z-news
In 2018, Ziegler conducted a Ziegler CFO HotlineSM poll and identified that roughly 30% of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) in the not-for-profit senior living sector will be retiring within the next five years. When looking across the next 10 years, that number jumps to 73% of CEOs exiting the field. We have clearly observed a number of C-Suite transitions within the not-for-profit sector. There were 50 CEO transitions among the LeadingAge Ziegler 200 (“LZ 200”) organizations between 2014 and 2018. So, it is no surprise that a number of organizations are embarking upon succession planning discussions and looking to develop strategies for anticipated C-Suite retirements.
Ziegler recently took a deeper look into those 50 CEO transitions to better understand trends in C-Suite recruitment, particularly the role of the chief executive. The analysis found that the replacement CEOs were fairly evenly divided between individuals who came from within the organization and those who were external to the organization. As detailed below, since 2014, 56% of new CEOs among the LZ 200 were previously in another position within the organization.
Those who came from outside of the organization were most likely to come from another senior living organization, which was the case in about 50% of the situations involving an external replacement. Other common external roles were positions in other healthcare settings, aside from a senior living organization, as well as from consulting firms. Among the 56% who came from within the organization, the positions were varied, ranging from operations to the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) to other senior leadership positions.
In future iterations of the analysis, Ziegler will take a look at the succession planning for other C-Suite positions, including the CFO and COO roles. Just as the number of CEOs has turned over in recent years, the COO and CFO positions have been in transition at an active pace as well.
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