Preparing for a Succession Emergency: Learning from Unexpected CEO Departures

March 14, 2014 Leave a comment

Preparing for a Succession Emergency: Learning from Unexpected CEO Departures

Jason D. Schloetzer 

Georgetown University – McDonough School of Business

Edward Ferris 

Milano School of Management and Urban Policy
The Conference Board Director Notes No. DN-V5N3, February 2013
Georgetown McDonough School of Business Research Paper

Abstract: 
Succession planning is one of a board’s most important oversight responsibilities. Accordingly, a majority of corporate boards conduct an annual review of the CEO succession planning process. However, emergency succession events, such as the unexpected departure or sudden death of a CEO, act as a “stress test” of the succession process and place considerable pressure on boards to act swiftly and decisively to fill the leadership gap. A quick response can be problematic if the succession planning process lacks an emergency component or a succession-ready candidate is unavailable. This report outlines common issues that arise during an emergency succession, provides guidance on how to prepare for and respond to a succession crisis, and encourages boards to integrate succession planning into the company’s crisis-preparedness process.

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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