Survey Analysis: Board Leadership Succession Planning

Explore findings from NACD’s 2024 Private Company Board Practices and Oversight Survey related to board leadership succession planning. The data was gathered from directors who serve on the boards of privately held companies.

Access the full 2024 survey here.

Key Insights

While the board has a prominent role in the CEO selection and succession process, the board has another crucial task that garners less attention: selecting its own leaders. Survey data suggest that most private company boards do not have a systematic approach to plan for their next board chair, lead independent director, and committee chairs. For example, only 42 percent of respondents discussed short-term board and committee leadership succession planning in the past year and even fewer (37%) considered longer term plans.