52 LEXPERT MAGAZINE
|
MAY 2018
FEATURE
WHEN IT
IS PAST TIME
PLANS FOR CEO SUCCESSION OFTEN
LEAVE OUT DEATH AND DISASTER
BY BRIAN BURTON
CERTAIN STATISTICS INDICATE
that up to 36 per cent
of private-sector companies lack advance planning for any kind of
leadership change, strongly suggesting an even larger number may
lack procedures for the unanticipated death, departure or removal
of a corporate leader. As in-house counsel, that is not going to be
you. Perhaps you've endured an unplanned expulsion of the CEO
in a previous role and you've vowed not to relive the experience.
ere was a succession plan, of course, the previous time. But it
did not anticipate the many scenarios that can go wrong.
DEATH AND DIVORCE
As a newly-minted lawyer and in-house counsel at a telecom com-
pany, Shana French had a front-row seat during the removal of the
CEO and the subsequent departure of his entire executive team,
people with whom she'd built professional relationships. Some
two decades later, as a corporate governance specialist with the
Toronto office of Sherrard Kuzz LLP, French estimates she's ad-
vised nearly 100 client companies on the sudden loss or expulsion
of a corporate leader.
"I'm like a (corporate) divorce lawyer," she says. Continuing the
analogy, she says Boards of directors need to be careful about the
credentials they look for when it comes to finding a successor in
the top job. "You need to make sure you're hiring someone who's
going to be good marriage material." at is, someone who's in it
for the long haul and not just a hot CV. But it's far from the only
hurdle ahead of a corporate Board with a sudden vacancy at the
top of the house.
She says succession planning at many privately-held companies
is typically done as a long-serving CEO approaches retirement. If
FOR THE CEO TO LEAVE
