Shareholders pay considerable attention to the choice of executive selected as the new CEO whenever a change in leadership takes place. However, without an inside look at the leading candidates to assume the CEO role, it is difficult for shareholders to tell whether the board has made the...

This article starts with an overview of the characteristics of chief executive officers (CEOs). I discuss the rising importance of general skills over firm-specific skills and the growing share of externally recruited CEOs. I also discuss possible reasons for the underrepresentation of women and...

We examine the relationship between protracted CEO successions and stock returns. In protracted successions, an incumbent CEO announces his or her resignation without a known successor, so the incumbent CEO becomes a “lame duck.” We find that 31% of CEO successions from 2005 to 2014 in the...