CEO's positions are more volatile than any other staff appointment globally. According to the latest report by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, around 1,425 CEOs have resigned from their positions, a 49 per cent increase over the 969 CEOs who left last year. The year 2023 has seen the highest number of quits in the first nine months since Challenger, Grey & Christmas, which helps corporate employees find new positions, began tracking CEO exits in 2002. Experts believe that the departures are the result of a variety of circumstances.
Here's a list of the most notable departures until now:
1) Sam Altman
Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI and the developer of the AI chatbot ChatGPT, was recently sacked. The company's board, in its statement, said, "no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI." According to the announcement, Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati will be the interim CEO effective immediately, and the company will search for a permanent CEO successor. Altman took to X (former Twitter) and wrote, "I loved my time at OpenAI. It was transformative for me and, hopefully, the rest of the globe. Most of all, I enjoyed working with such talented people. I'll have more to say about what comes next."
2) Steve Jobs
Apple's co-founder and CEO, Steve Jobs, was sacked from the firm he built. The late founder was just 21 years old when he established Apple. Jobs was publicly ousted nine years after a power struggle with then-CEO John Sculley, whom Jobs hired from Pepsi. The Apple Board of Directors sided with Sculley and fired Jobs. During his Stanford University graduating speech, Jobs recounted the incident and said, "I was out, and very publicly out." "What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating," he added.
3) Phaneesh Murthy
In 2013, Phaneesh Murthy, president and CEO of IT firm iGate, was fired for 'violating' company policy by failing to report a 'relationship' with a coworker. An employee, Araceli Roiz, filed a sexual harassment claim. After an investigation by outside legal counsel, Murthy was found guilty. The company's board of directors stated its headquarters in Fremont, California, claiming that the employee had also submitted a complaint alleging sexual harassment. Murthy had previously faced similar charges at Infosys.
4) Carol Bartz
In 2011, Yahoo's CEO, Carol Bartz, was fired. The former top executive at Sun Microsystems and Autodesk, Bartz, joined Yahoo when Google gradually dominated the search industry. However, just after two and a half years, Bartz's reign ended when, according to an email she sent to Yahoo employees in 2011, she was "fired over the phone by Yahoo's Chairman of the Board."
5) Parag Agrawal
Elon Musk sacked senior Twitter executives within minutes of taking control. The CEO, Parag Agrawal, was the first to depart the company. Agrawal was chosen as Twitter's CEO in November 2021.
6) Jack Dorsey
Jack Dorsey co-founded the microblogging startup Twitter in 2006 but was sacked by the board of directors in 2008 following his work attitude. He was said to have spent several work hours painting and stitching.
7) Mark Hurd
In August 2010, when outside contractor Jodie Fisher accused HP CEO Mark Hurd of sexual harassment, Hurd was asked to exit. Following Hurd's abrupt exit, HP lost billions of dollars in stock value. Given that Hurd had successfully overseen HP's recovery after Carly Fiorina's departure, the company also had to deal with multiple lawsuits. However, an internal HP inquiry cleared Hurd of harassment charges but found that he had submitted fake expense reports.
8) Girish Paranjpe And Suresh Vaswani
Wipro's joint CEO, Girish Paranjpe and Suresh Vaswani, resigned in January 2011. According to reports, the duo quit after the company failed to meet analyst anticipations in FY2010–2011's third quarter.
9) Stephen Elop
Stephen Elop quit Microsoft to join Nokia. Investors never received the acquisition of Nokia's handset division by former Microsoft CEO Ballmer. Elop struggled to achieve popularity for his own brand of Lumia telephones, which were exclusively compatible with Windows. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, in an email to employees, said, "Stephen and I have decided that this is the right time for him to retire from Microsoft."
10) Gianfranco Lanci
The Taiwanese computer company Acer's CEO, Gianfranco Lanci, reigned in April 2011 due to differences with the board of directors. Lanci was Acer's CEO since 2008 and was rumoured to be at odds with the board of directors over company strategy. Following Acer's official statement, "Lanci held different views on the company's future development than most board members and could not reach a consensus after several months of dialogue."
11) Ankiti Bose
Co-founder and CEO of Zilingo, Ankiti Bose, was sacked in 2022 after an investigation into significant financial irregularities.
12) Peter Chou
Peter Chou, CEO of HTC, was suddenly sacked from his position as CEO in March 2015, almost a decade after joining HTC. Chou was fired when the company's smartphones failed to connect with buyers and received negative feedback.
