“The other risk is if something unexpected happens to that famous CEO, say a medical crisis, or they're found to have had an affair with a suspected spy. Then what?”
Marketplace · Money & Markets · November 2026
Context
Epp's report on the pluses and pitfalls of celebrity CEOs ran the day after Nvidia's board opened an investigation into Jensen Huang. He is explaining why boards need succession plans for charismatic CEOs.
Transcript
A CEO investors are confident in can drive a stock price up, but there's also a lot of risk in tying a company's fortune to one person because attitudes among the public and investors can change. Yojud Cheng is at the University of Virginia.
In the past, maybe you have a CEO whose identity really kind of resonates with the customers or the broader community, but that doesn't necessarily mean that that's going to continue into the future.
The public turns on a CEO and maybe they turn to competitors. Not great. The other risk is if something unexpected happens to that famous CEO, say a medical crisis, or they're found to have had an affair with a suspected spy. Then what? That's why it's important for corporate boards to do succession planning, Cheng says. I think it should always be kind of in the back of the board's mind of like, okay, who's next? Best practice, says Anthony Nyberg at the University of South Carolina, is for a board to push company leaders to identify top talent within their ranks.
And make sure that that talent is getting developed in a way that there is some optionality for the board for whatever might come in the long term in terms of future transitions.
That's a difficult conversation with any CEO, Nyberg says. And the problem with celebrity CEOs is they often gain more and more influence over their board.
And that makes it even more difficult for the board to push back and make sure that there's a strong successor leader in the pipeline.
More from Marketplace
