Cowen Partners Executive Search

Plan your next chief executive transition

Your next CEO appointment begins with decisions about governance, strategy, and the leadership bench. The Succession Roadmap gives your board and C-suite a five-phase framework for organizing those decisions, from initial readiness through the new leader’s first year.

Download the roadmap

Five phases. Defined decisions at every stage.

Use this guide to identify the work your board needs to own, the evidence required to evaluate successors, and the commitments that support a deliberate handoff.

1. Governance readiness

Assess your board’s composition and clarify governance responsibilities before the transition process begins.

2. Define the future CEO role

Translate your strategic plan and future organizational structure into a written chief executive profile.

3. Assess your leadership bench

Evaluate internal candidates against that profile and assign development gaps, owners, and dates.

4. Choose your succession process

Determine whether to appoint internally, search externally, or run both paths with a clear decision owner.

5. Manage the first year

Plan the leadership overlap, relationship handover, onboarding, and stakeholder communication sequence.

Protect the essentials when timelines compress

A shorter transition window changes how your board sequences the work. The roadmap explains which phases can run concurrently and identifies three priorities to preserve:

  • A written profile for the chief executive your company will need.
  • An evidence-based assessment of candidates against that profile.
  • A defined overlap period for relationship handover.

Download the Succession Roadmap

Complete the form to access the roadmap. Use the framework to structure your next board discussion and define the work ahead.
Succession Roadmap for Boards

Questions about the roadmap

What does the roadmap cover?

The guide covers five phases of a planned chief executive transition: governance readiness, defining the future CEO role, assessing internal candidates, choosing an internal or external process, and managing the handoff and first year. Each phase identifies the decisions and deliverables your board needs to address.

Can we use it if our transition is less than eighteen months away?

Yes. The roadmap includes guidance for compressed timelines, when phases need to overlap. Governance readiness and role definition can run concurrently. The guide identifies the written CEO profile, evidence-based candidate assessment, and outgoing-to-incoming leadership overlap as three elements your board should protect as the schedule shortens.

Does the guide address internal and external candidates?

Yes. The roadmap explains internal appointment, external search, and a combined process that evaluates both. It addresses assessing your internal bench against a written CEO profile and using an external process to establish a market benchmark, so your board can make the appointment with structured evidence.

Board-level guidance for executive succession

Cowen Partners Executive Search advises boards, chief executives, and investors through governance readiness, executive search, and a new leader’s first year. Your succession decisions are supported by senior partner-led retained executive search and total market access.

Cowen Partners Executive Search