Following Nick Beighton stepping down as CEO of Asos, our CEO Doug Baird looks at the challenge for CEO successors keen to take fresh eyes to a new role.
The so-called ‘successor’s dilemma’ is a well-debated, and still highly intriguing, subject. A great deal surrounding this dilemma has contemplated the search for new CEOs, preparing them to take the leadership reigns and how the relationship develops between the incoming leader and the incumbent.
Many factors of the successor dilemma are now facing the Asos board and as the business transitions to a new CEO, the board will still need to consider the careful management of this process and the role of Asos’ interim leader. This must be achieved alongside other senior-level changes – the company’s chair is due to depart in the near future.
The key, of course, is to find the required experience, skills, aptitude, values and cultural fit of a CEO successor. Although there’s a lot for the Asos board to contemplate, in this instance, none of it is necessarily the most challenging or fascinating aspect of the successor dilemma – that belongs to the choices the new CEO will have to make between the old and the new.
© CEO Today 2021
Read the full article in November 2021’s edition of CEO Today.