STI’s CEO turnover matches six-year high in 2024

There were four outgoing CEOs that year.

In 2024, the Straits Times Index (STI) had four outgoing CEOs, the joint highest number of outgoing CEOs in six years, Russell Reynolds Associates (RRA) reported.

“While global CEO turnover numbers reached a record high globally in 2024, CEO turnover in Asia bucked the trend and saw an 8% YoY dip in 2024,” RRA said.

Notably, all of STI’s outgoing and incoming CEOs in 2024 were all first-timers. Globally, 95% of incoming CEOs across Asia-listed companies were also first-timers.

“Globally, a record number of CEOs (43) departed after less than 36 months as activist investor patience for underperformance ran thin. In Asia however, in a year of global geopolitical headwinds, political and election-related change, and economic challenges, boards largely stuck by their CEOs,” RRA said.

Meanwhile, of the four incoming CEOs in the STI in 2024, half were female.

According to RRA, it will take 65.3 and 63 years respectively to reach CEO gender parity on the Hang Seng Index and STI, at the current rate of change, compared to an average of 72.5 years globally.