在2018年美国大公司新上任的CEO中，叫杰弗里和迈克尔的人比女性的数量还多。（是的，你没有看错：2018年被任命为CEO的人中，两位叫迈克尔，两位叫杰弗里，却只有一位女性。）目前企业高管的人事变动增多，但超大型公司CEO们的任职时间平均却接近10年，或至少和以往的任职时间一样长。今天CEO最重要的训练基地是哪？不是苹果或微软，而是不断创新的饮料企业——百事公司。

这些只是2018年《新CEO报告》中的其中一些观察，这是Feigen Advisors（TheNewCEOReport.com）对标普500公司中最大的250家（按照2018年岁入计算）新任命CEO的情况进行的一项调查。该公司的创始人马克·费根（我给他起了个绰号叫“CEO代言人”）为美国候任CEO提供一流咨询服务。费根的专长是CEO的继任问题。他为被选定接替现任CEO的高管提供赴任前咨询，帮助他们制定战略愿景，把他们引荐给一个由《财富》美国500强企业退休高管组成的智囊团来为他们提供建议，让接任过程更加顺利。费根曾经指导过（或者仍然在继续提供指导）的在任CEO包括华特迪士尼的（Walt Disney）的鲍勃·艾格、雅诗兰黛（Estee Lauder）的法布里齐奥·弗雷达和哈特福德（The Hartford）的克里斯·斯威夫特。

这份关于2018年信任CEO的报告可以将副标题定为“稳定性研究”，甚至是“我们又来了”。2014年以来，费根每年都会撰写新报告，而今年的结果再一次证明，美国企业领导人换届的方式年复一年，始终如一——好的坏的方面都是如此。新任CEO再一次被资深的公司内部人士主导，他们按照精心策划的继任程序接替任期（长得惊人）届满的前任。大部分都不是突然的调整。在企业巨头中，因为董事会不满或公司突然任命外部CEO被赶下台的CEO比例非常低。

但美国企业对固有做法的坚守存在明显缺点，其中包括董事会未能成功培养女性担任最高职位。这导致了女性CEO的数量明显不足，尽管各个大公司都声称自己在保护女性的职业前景，但这种情况并没有得到改善。

费根在2018年《新CEO报告》中探索了一些非常重要且大都由来已久的趋势。以下是其中重要的五点判断。

大多数新CEO都是公司资深内部人士

2014年以来，费根每年都撰写新报告，因此将去年的结果和五年的整体趋势进行对于很能说明情况。再次发现一些特点惊人得一致。报告发现，标普指数前250家公司在去年更换了23位CEO。流动率为9.2%，低于5年间的平均数字11%。也就是说，尽管中小型企业的CEO任期年限正在变短，大企业至少仍然和过去一样稳定。但是，大企业的CEO们并没有变得更年轻：2018年他们的平均年龄是56岁，而5年来的平均年龄是54.6岁。

在23位新CEO中，20位是董事会从公司内部提拔的，占87%。在这20人中，16人在公司长期任职，平均而言，他们在本公司的工作时间远远超过20年。这与近几年的数据是一致的。自2014年以来，134位新CEO中有112位（84%）是内部人士。例如，迈克·沃斯1982年大学毕业后就加入雪佛龙，史蒂夫·斯奎里1985年加入Travelers Cheque Group，开始了在美国运通工作的经历。

但其他四名内部人士却走了一条不同的道路。他们大多是过去几年从竞争对手公司中招聘来的，在本公司就任高级职位后，在一系列岗位上快速晋升，充分展示了让他们赢得最高职位的特质。汤姆·贝内2013年离开百事，加入餐饮巨头西斯科（Sysco），担任首席商品官，洛克希德-马丁公司（Lockheed Martin）的资深员工克里斯·库巴西克于2015年以确定接班人的身份加入国防承包商L3 Technologies，担任首席运营官。

招聘外部人士通常是为了拯救状况不佳的公司

美国大公司的CEO任职时间都很长。去年，离职CEO的平均任期是9.3年，略高于近5年的平均任期（9年）。绝大多数退休是计划之中的，而非因为危机。去年，23位新任CEO中有18位从任期届满的前任手中接过了火炬，他们在离职前都会按照精心安排的流程履行接任程序。这不是什么新鲜事；自2014年以来，约四分之三的CEO换届都是计划内的，而非即兴动作。

当董事会迫使CEO辞职时，外部人士是最常见的选择。在20多位新任CEO中，只有三位来自于公司外部，招聘他们往往是为了挽救境况不佳的公司。其中两人的任命是因为董事会对前任表现不满。曾在通用电气董事会任职的拉里·卡尔普放弃了工业集团丹纳赫（Danaher）的最高职位，成为这家陷入困境的电力和航天巨头126年历史上首位来自于公司外部的掌门人。他的前任约翰·弗兰纳里在上任14个月以后被董事会解雇了。马文·埃里森放弃了彭尼百货（J.C. Penney）的CEO一职，转而执掌劳氏（Lowe’s)），劳氏的股价表现一直不如竞争对手家得宝（Home Depot）。第三位外来者约翰·维辛丁是因为股东的反抗登上权力顶峰的。活跃分子卡尔·伊坎领导了一场激烈的代理权争夺战之后，他亲自挑选维辛丁接管了在复印机行业销售不断缩水的施乐（Xerox），希望他能开展一次大营救。

董事会青睐曾领导关键运营部门的候选人

在过去五年134位新上任的CEO中，至少有107位（80%）的简历上有同一个关键性的亮点：运营公司关键业务部门的经验。在所有新上任的领导者中，超过一半的人——几乎所有人都有过业务部门的运营经验——在他们升任之前曾经担任首席运营官、总裁或两者兼而有之。也就是说，他们的上一个角色不是高级员工，而是负责整个公司的运营和财务业绩。显然，董事们想要的是曾经在核心部门亲力亲为自负盈亏并成功证明了自己的管理者。

董事会也喜欢前任CEO。为重振劳氏、通用电气和施乐而引入的外部人士都曾担任过CEO——维辛廷此前曾经担任过流程自动化供应商Novitex的CEO。首席财务官是第二大重要跳板，不过前财务部分负责人的数量远远落后于业务部门负责人。去年对于前任首席财务官来说是个好年头，他们中有5人升为CEO，包括威瑞森（Verizon）的卫翰思和奥驰亚（Altria）的霍华德·威拉德。其他职位很少能够晋升为CEO：过去五年中，只有9%的CEO来自于市场营销部门，仅有5%来自于后台运营。

最好的CEO训练营是一家薯条可乐巨头

大多数CEO都拥有非常出色的教育背景。2014年至2018年，超过60%的新CEO拥有研究生学位，几乎一半拥有MBA学位。62个MBA中，11个来自于哈佛商学院。

CEO的顶级培训基地是哪？百事公司遥遥领先。2014年以来新的CEO中有9人曾经在百事工作过,包括塔吉特（Target）的布莱恩·康奈尔（他曾经执掌百事的美洲食品部门）、达美航空（Delta）的艾德·巴斯蒂安（他曾掌管菲多利）、格雷格·克里德（他把塔可钟和肯德基开到了澳大利亚和新西兰）、西斯科的托马斯·贝内（主管百事的食品服务特许经营业务）。其中7人目前仍然在担任CEO；只有卡夫的前CEO、现任卡夫亨氏（Kraft Heinz）副主席约翰·卡希尔，Express Scripts前任CEO、在Express Scripts被信诺（Cigna）收购后掌管Express业务的蒂莫西·温特沃斯有了新职位。

百事公司为什么是一个学习的好地方？尽管你可能认为主要原因是百事公司超强的营销能力，但该公司显然拥有引以为豪的轮岗机制，可以让有前途的经理人在不同岗位得到锻炼，这些经理人往往可以拥有在金融、制造以及在全球建立和运营大品牌特许经营权方面的职业经历。而且，从历史上看，百事公司的人力资源项目一直是美国排名最高的人才培养项目之一。

女性CEO惊人匮乏

去年，23位新上任的CEO中，只有一位是女性——科尔斯百货（Kohl’s）的米歇尔·加斯，她2013年离开星巴克，加入了这家零售企业，从此一路快速晋升至最高职位。这一令人遗憾的数字和2017年相比有所下降，那年有两名女性被任命为CEO，分别是Anthem的盖尔·布德罗和PG&E的瑰夏·威廉姆斯。威廉姆斯于今年1月辞职，就在这家因为加州森林大火遭受重创的公用事业公司申请破产之前。自2014年以来，134位新任CEO中只有9位是女性。令人惊讶的是，美国大公司在性别平衡方面的努力失败了，因为衡量相关举措成功的最终指标应该是女性CEO人数的激增。

以2018年为例，三名女性因退休离开了CEO行列，包括百事可乐的卢英德、惠普（Hewlett Packard）的梅格·惠特曼和桑普拉能源（Sempra Energy）的黛布拉·里德，因此女性CEO的数量减少了两位。美国全部高管中，女性占比为四分之一以上。然而据最新统计，标普指数最大的250家公司中只有17位女性CEO。

为什么大公司难以提拔女性担任CEO呢？费根指出，许多大公司往往无法发现30多岁女性身上的强大潜力，没有让她们通过担任一系列不同的角色把她们培养成全面发展的领导者。他说：“公司考虑的是三到五年之后的CEO继任问题，但他们却没有培养出足够多能够在短时间内胜任最高职位的女性候选人。”他还提到，繁重的出差日常和24小时待命的工作安排，可能会让一些有家庭的女性不愿意担任高层运营工作。他说：“你也不能低估男性老板的隐形偏见，他们错误地认为，女性没有足够的动力驱使她们在关系到企业盈亏的关键职位上取得成功。”

大公司固执地坚持那些几乎没有变化的“最佳实践”。这些“最佳实践”一直引导着几十年来的CEO接替流程。但董事会未能发现足够多具备成为超级明星的能力和动力的女性，未能按照本应造就许多美国最伟大CEO的职业生涯培养她们。受传统束缚的CEO继任程序需要变革，需要一场全面运动让女性登上最高岗位。（财富中文网）

译者：Agatha

The roster of newly-minted CEOs at America’s largest companies for 2018 contains more executives named Jeffrey and Michael than it does women. (Yes, you read that right: two men named Michael were named CEO in 2018, two named Jeffrey, and just one lone woman.) Contrary to the myth of rising churn at the top, mega-cap CEOs are keeping their jobs for almost a decade, at least as long as in the past. The premier training ground for today’s chieftains? It’s not an Apple or Microsoft but that ever-inventive thirst-quencher, PepsiCo, Inc.

Those are just a few of the insights from the “New CEO Report” for 2018, a survey of the newly-named leaders at the 250 largest S&P 500 companies, measured by last year’s revenues, conducted by Feigen Advisors, LLC. (TheNewCEOReport.com) The firm’s founder, Marc Feigen––whom I nicknamed “the CEO whisperer”––is America’s leading adviser to CEOs in waiting. Feigen’s speciality is CEO succession. He smoothes the process by counseling the executives who’ve been anointed to succeed the current chief in the period before they take charge, helping them to shape a strategic vision and introducing them to a braintrust of retired Fortune 500 chiefs who proffer advice. The list of current CEOs whom Feigen’s guided (and in some cases, continues to advise) include Bob Iger of Walt Disney, Fabrizio Freda of Estee Lauder, and Chris Swift of The Hartford.

The report on the class of 2018 could be subtitled, “a study in stability,” or even “here we go again.” Feigen has been producing the report since 2014, and this year’s results underscore the relentless, year-to-year consistency in the way corporate America transitions to new leaders––for good and for bad. Once again, the new class is dominated by veteran insiders who are replacing leaders who served their full, surprisingly lengthy terms, in carefully planned successions. Most don’t arise from a sudden upheaval. At the corporate giants, the proportion of departing CEOs forced out by dissatisfied boards, and surprise appointments from outside the company, are remarkably low.

But corporate America’s adherence to long-established practices has glaring weaknesses, including the boards’ failure to groom women for the top job. That’s led to a paucity of female CEOs that despite employers’ claims of championing their careers, isn’t improving.

Feigen’s “New CEO Report” for 2018 explores a number of key, mostly enduring, trends. Here are five notable examples.

New CEOs are mostly long-serving insiders

Feigen has been producing the report since 2014, so it’s instructive to compare last year’s results with the trends over the full five-year period. Once again, the consistency is remarkable. The report found that last year, the S&P 250 replaced 23 CEOs. That turnover rate of 9.2% is below the 5 year figure of 11%, so although tenure at the top is shrinking in small and mid-sized companies, the giants are showing at least as much stability as in the past. Big Cap CEOs aren’t getting younger: The average age for the class of ’18 was 56 compared with the 5-year norm of 54.6.

Boards promoted 20 of the 23 new CEOs (87%) from within the companies’s ranks. Sixteen of those twenty insiders were long-tenured veterans who’d spent, on average, well over two decades with their employer. That’s right in line with recent history. Since 2014, 112 of the 134 new CEOs (84%) have been insiders. For example, Mike Wirth joined Chevron out of college in 1982, and Steve Squeri started at American Express in the Travelers Cheque Group in 1985.

But the other four insiders followed a different path. They were hired into senior positions, mainly from rivals, over the past several years, and “fast tracked” through through a range of roles where they displayed the mettle that won them top job. Tom Bene joined catering giant Sysco as chief merchandising officer from PepsiCo in 2013, and Lockheed Martin veteran Chris Kubasik went to defense contractor L3 Technologies as COO in 2015 as heir apparent.

Outsiders are usually hired to repair a struggling enterprise

CEOs in big-cap America serve a long time. Last year, the average tenure of the departing bosses was 9.3 years, slightly higher than the half-decade average of 9 years. Retirements overwhelmingly occur as planned, not because of a crisis. Last year, 18 of the 23 new CEOs took the torch from predecessors who’d served their full terms and left following a long-orchestrated process of succession. That’s nothing new; since 2014, around three-quarters of all CEO transitions were planned, not improvised.

Outsiders are the most frequent choice when boards force CEOs to resign. Only three of the two-dozen new CEOs came from the outside, and all were recruited to fix ailing companies. Two were installed by boards dissatisfied with the performance of their predecessors. Larry Culp, who’d been serving on GE’s board, left the top job at industrial conglomerate Danaher to became the first outsider to run the flailing power and aerospace giant in its 126 year history, after the board ejected predecessor John Flannery after fourteen months on the job. Marvin Ellison traded his CEO position at J.C. Penney to run Lowe’s, whose stock was underperforming shares of rival Home Depot. The third outsider, John Visintin, ascended via a shareholder revolt. He took over at Xerox, which has suffered years of shrinking copier sales, following a ferocious proxy fight led by activist Carl Icahn, who hand-picked Visintin to lead a rescue operation.

Boards covet candidates who’ve led big operating units

Over the past five years, no fewer than 107 or 80% of the 134 newly-named CEOs had a crucial attraction on their resumes: experience running key business units at their companies. More than half of the all new leaders––almost all of whom had operated business units at one point–-served as COO, president or both just prior to their ascension, so their last position wasn’t a top staff job, but responsibility for the entire company’s operations and financial results. Clearly directors want CEOs who’ve proven successful as hands-on managers running their own P&Ls at a core franchise.

Boards also like former CEOs. As noted, the outsiders brought in to revive the sagging fortunes at Lowe’s, GE, and Xerox are all former chief executives––Visintin had previously run process automation provider Novitex. The CFO slot is the second leading stepping stone, though former finance chiefs lag far behind the business unit leaders. Last year was a good year for ex-CFOs, five of whom rose to CEO including Hans Vestberg of Verizon and Howard Willard of Altria. Other staff jobs seldom lead to the CEO suite: Only 9% of CEOs named in the last five years came from marketing, and even fewer, 5% rose from back-office operations.

The top boot camp for CEOs is a chips and cola giant

Most CEOs are extremely well-educated. Of the classes from 2014 to 2018, over 60% had a graduate degrees, and almost half boasted MBAs. Harvard Business School dispensed 11 out of those 62 diplomas.

The top training ground for CEOs? It’s PepsiCo by a wide margin. Nine CEOs named since 2014 worked at Pepsi, among them Brian Cornell of Target, who ran the Americas Foods division at Pepsi, Ed Bastian of Delta who was controller of Frito-Lay, Greg Creed, who established Taco Bell and KFC in Australia and New Zealand, and Thomas Bene of Sysco, who ran Pepsi’s food service franchise. Seven are still in the CEO chair; only former Kraft chief John Cahill, now vice chairman of Kraft Heinz, and former Express Scripts CEO Timothy Wentworth, who runs the Express business following its acquisition by Cigna, have new roles.

Why is Pepsi such a great place to learn? Though you might think it’s primarily a marketing machine, Pepsi clearly prided itself on cycling promising managers through a wide variety of roles, so that careers often bridge job in finance, manufacturing, and building and running big brands franchises across the globe. And historically the company has operated one of the top rated, talent-building HR programs in America.

Female CEOs are shockingly rare

Last year, just one of the 23 newly-appointed CEOs was a woman––Michelle Gass of Kohl’s, who’d joined the retailer in 2013 from Starbucks, and was fast-tracked to the top. That sorry record is a downshift from 2017, when two women were named, Gail Boudreaux at Anthem and Geisha Williams at PG&E. Williams resigned in January just before the utility, devastated by California wildfires, filed for bankruptcy. Since 2014, only nine of the 134 new CEOs have been women. And amazingly, big cap America’s efforts at inclusion are failing at what should be the ultimate measure of success, swelling the number of female CEOs.

In 2018, for example, three women left the list via retirement, Indra Nooyi of Pepsi, Meg Whitman at Hewlett Packard, and Debra Reed at Sempra Energy—so the female CEO ranks slipped by two. Women account for over one-fourth of all the America’s executive talent. Yet at last count, only 17 of the S&P 250 have female CEOs.

So why do big companies struggle to elevate women to the CEO suite? Feigen notes that many big companies too often fail to identify women in their 30s with strong potential, then move them through a series of varied assignments to mold well-rounded leaders. “Companies think about CEO succession three to five years out,” he says, “yet they fail to develop a deep pool of female candidates who’d be ready for the top job in that short time-frame.” He also cites the grueling travel schedules and 24-7 availability that can discourage some women with families for taking top operating jobs. “You also can’t underestimate hidden bias by male bosses, who wrongly convince themselves that women won’t have the drive necessary to succeed in key jobs running a P&L,” he says.

Big companies stick doggedly to the little-changing “best practices” that have guided the CEO succession dynamic for decades. But boards are failing to identify women with the ability and drive to become superstars, then nurture careers that should be creating many of America’s greatest CEOs. The tradition-bound succession process needs an upheaval, an all-out campaign to bring female talent to the top.