PwC's "How the best boards approach CEO succession planning" supports with statistics and trends the need for board focus on CEO succession planning and shares leading practices for boards to help facilitate a smooth CEO transition. Notably, clearly delineating who on the board owns the succession planning process and their roles and responsibilities—including as respects involving others, such as the incumbent CEO, in the process—is deemed critical to success.
As shown here, allocation of CEO succession planning among the board and its committees—a responsibility traditionally commonly assumed or led by the Nom/Gov Committee—varies:
The publication also suggests other trending topics that may be logically considered at the time of a succession event, including CEO-director overboarding, board leadership structure, and board/executive diversity.