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CEO succession in growth companies isn’t the same as in established enterprises. You don’t have a deep bench of internal candidates groomed over decades. You may be navigating a founder transition, a PE-driven leadership change, or the need for a CEO who can take the company from £50m to £500m – a fundamentally different challenge than maintaining steady-state performance.
The stakes are higher, the timelines are shorter, and the margin for error is smaller. Yet too many growth companies treat succession as an emergency response rather than a strategic capability.
SpenglerFox brings two decades of growth company expertise to CEO succession. We understand the leadership profiles that drive scale-up success, PE value creation, and transformational growth. Whether you’re planning years ahead or responding to an unexpected departure, we help you make the CEO decision that accelerates your trajectory.
At SpenglerFox, we treat CEO succession as a strategic capability, not a one-off event. Our approach aligns your business strategy with future leadership needs, ensuring you have the right CEO for where your organisation is heading. We start with a rigorous succession readiness assessment, evaluating board preparedness, internal talent, timing expectations, and the leadership profile your strategy demands. From there, we objectively assess internal candidates and benchmark them against the external market, giving boards the clarity to distinguish genuine readiness from aspiration.
We translate assessment into action through a clear succession roadmap covering development plans, transition timelines, board communication, and contingency scenarios. Where internal succession is not the right answer, our global executive search team identifies proven CEOs who can lead your next phase of growth. We then support the transition through onboarding, the first 100 days, and, where required, interim leadership, ensuring continuity, momentum, and long-term impact.
Every CEO transition is unique, and our approach adapts to the context. We support founder transitions where emotional legacy and future scalability must be carefully balanced, helping organisations professionalise leadership without losing what made them successful. In private equity environments, we manage succession under compressed timelines, aligning CEO capability with value creation plans, transformation agendas, and exit horizons.
For planned retirements, we help boards look forward rather than replicate the past, identifying the leadership required for the next chapter, not the last. When succession is unplanned or urgent, our interim management capability provides immediate stability while our executive search teams move at pace to secure the right long-term successor. In high-stakes moments, we turn disruption into decisive, value-preserving transitions.
Since 2003, we have partnered with scaling, PE-backed, and ambitious mid-market companies to solve their most critical leadership challenges. We understand what growth-stage leadership really requires—and the difference between a CEO who can sustain stability and one who can drive transformation. CEO succession is inherently multi-disciplinary, which is why board advisory, leadership assessment, executive search, and interim management sit within one integrated SpenglerFox approach—one relationship, aligned end to end.
With 370+ consultants across 46 countries, we provide access to global CEO talent, whether your priorities demand local depth or international perspective. When timing is critical, our interim management capability ensures immediate, credible leadership—protecting momentum while boards make confident, long-term succession decisions.