as the average tenure of America’s top finance chiefs grows to the longest of any sector, and those who may have delayed leaving to provide stability through the COVID-19 pandemic look to exit.“People are like, ‘I’m done. I don’t want to go back into the office,’” Ash Athawale, senior group managing director at recruiter Robert Half Inc., said in an interview. “‘I’ve done my time. I’ve taken my organization through something that nobody was prepared for.
in the S&P 500 is approaching 11 years, up from about eight years in 2018, according to data compiled by Bloomberg using the Bloomberg Industry Classification Standard. Finance still holds the top spot even when excluding outliers like Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’sAn increase in CEO turnover could present challenges for companies and investors alike.
“These CEOs have knowledge and connections with the regulators,” Athawale said. “Even if you have a CEO who’s not doing as amazingly as the board would expect, they keep him on or her on because it’s a lot more difficult to replace that individual.” The increase in tenure has helped to make finance the oldest sector in the S&P 500. It now has more CEOs 60 years old and above than any other industry, while the percentage of finance chiefs in that age range has gone from about average a decade ago, 32 per cent, to the highest today, 64 per cent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.Finance CEOs in the S&P 500 are now also the oldest of any sector on average — over 62 years old, up from 58 a decade ago.