CEO Succession Quotes

I'm the ninth CEO of IBM. Every one of my predecessors has steered through a technological shift, and every one left the company in a better position than the person before them and prepared this company with a very strong balance sheet to allow it to continue to invest for the next shift.

The final test of greatness in a CEO is how well he chooses a successor and whether he can step aside and let the successor run the company.

What's important about my election into the CEO role at Deloitte is to provide a role model for the next generation of diverse leaders at Deloitte.

Empirically the way you get a product visionary as CEO is for him to found the company and not get fired.

If somebody's going on your board, and you're going to be C.E.O., it will help if that person knows how to be C.E.O., who has done it before.

Every time a new CEO came, I got a promotion till I was made CEO myself.

I think running Apple is a great job, but it suits Steve Jobs so well. I wouldn't want to be the person that ran Apple after Steve, but he has a great job.

Any slots at the senior level, including CEO or other slots, will be filled internally.

I think there's few cases in history where the C.E.O. steps down and is also the founder and reports to someone and that works.

Deciding whether or not to bring in an outside CEO is one of the most gut-wrenching decisions that a founder will ever need to make.

When you have two people challenge for the same job and you keep them both and call them co-CEOs, or the whole fiasco of a 'merger of equals'... there is no such a thing. So if there should be dreams of dual leadership, the chances of success are limited. But Bernie [Ecclestone] is still at the top of his game I have noticed.

The industry has to learn how to do CEO succession well. If your definition of success is Intel or Microsoft or HP or IBM, that's not a good track record, and yet they are the most successful ones.

A critical question to ask when bringing in a new CEO to take the reins of a company you started is: Do you want someone who will maintain company culture or reinvent it?

I'm a really big believer in chief executives not staying forever.