This article questions whether Indian CEOs enjoy more stability and longer tenures than their U.S. counterparts and whether this impacts company performance.
Two articles that I came across, a few days apart, set me thinking on whether Indian CEOs are pampered.
The first article talks about how very few firms survive the '4 failed CEO' challenge. On a related vein, another article in Fortune article beautifully tracks the very similar points that Intel and Microsoft were at in 2000 but the different trajectories since then, thanks to very different CEO choices.
Following the recent CEO shuffle at Starbucks, I came across another article at NDTV Profit that had 3 interesting insights –
CEO role in US is anything but stable.
On the contrary, our own recent study of Indian CEOs, published recently, show that Indian CEOs enjoy long tenures (9.3y on average) and more stable career.
And, interestingly, key company performance metrics (Revenue CAGR, PAT CAGR, Mcap CAGR) do not seem to be impacted by the longevity of CEO tenure. If a long-serving CEO is not delivering substantially more than a relatively short-lived CEO, why are Indian CEOs allowed to continue for long periods?
Which set me thinking, are Indian CEOs being treated more kindly, as compared to the CEOs in US?
If so, is it better for India Inc to continue with longer tenures for Indian CEOs or would we be better off with a tighter review of CEO performance?
