CEOs in Singapore have greater staying power than global peers: report

[SINGAPORE] Chief executive officers in Singapore last longer than the global average, according to Russell Reynolds Associates’ (RRA) Global CEO Turnover Index.

Released on Thursday (Nov 27), the index showed that CEOs of companies on the Straits Times Index (STI) averaged a tenure of 8.8 years in the third quarter of 2025, compared with 7.2 years globally. Head honchos of Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index companies had a shorter tenure, at 3.7 years.

The RRA index tracks CEO departures from constituent companies in stock indices including Singapore’s STI, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng, Japan’s Nikkei 225, India’s NSE Nifty 50 and Australia’s ASX 200.

The average time in the top role across the Asia-Pacific region was 5.9 years, down from 6.1 years in the corresponding period in 2024.

The shorter tenures could be due to “board demands for agility and responsiveness amid rapid market shifts and regulatory changes”, said RRA. This prompts companies to replace CEOs earlier in the business lifecycle to sustain strategic momentum, it added.

The index also found that more than four in five new CEO appointments in Asia-Pacific in the year to date were internal, compared with a global average of about seven in 10.

“This strong preference for promoting from within suggests a deliberate strategy,” said RRA. It noted that global CEO departures have reached a historic eight-year high and are up 5 per cent compared with the same period in 2024.

In Q3 2025, the Asia-Pacific region recorded 12 CEO departures, with Australia accounting for 10 of them.

The region is also experiencing a surge in first-time CEOs.

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Nearly every single new CEO hire in Asia-Pacific took up the job for the first-time, with the 97 per cent number exceeding the global figure of 88 per cent.

For many public boards, the decision to elect a first-time CEO might “reflect a belief that new perspectives are essential to navigating ongoing transformation and market complexity”, said RRA.

There were 59 reported CEO departures in Asia-Pacific in the year to date, with Japan alone accounting for nearly half of this turnover.

RRA said that this indicates that some companies in the region are actively adapting leadership in response to “disruption, investor activism and strategic realignments”.