The Private Side of Exit Part Two: The CEO Who Leaves

When successfully delivering the deal also means leaving the company

A CEO can successfully deliver the biggest deal of his career and, in doing so, make himself redundant.

He may have spent months carrying the company and the transaction at the same time, maintaining performance, leading his senior team, reassuring employees and managing relationships with the board, shareholders, advisers and potential buyers, while holding information he cannot freely share with many of the people around him.

Then the deal completes. It is a success. The shareholders have achieved the outcome they wanted, the buyer has acquired the business and the CEO has done exactly what was required of him.

And his own role may now be over.

That is one of the things I find particularly interesting about M&A. There is an enormous amount of time spent thinking about what the acquisition means for the company, its shareholders, employees and new owners. Much less is said about the person who has carried so much of the responsibility for getting everyone over the line.

Of course, there may be entirely sensible commercial reasons for his departure. The acquiring organisation may already have its own leadership, roles may overlap, or his exit may have been part of the agreement from the beginning. He may understand and fully support the decision.

Understanding something intellectually and experiencing it personally can be quite different.

For years, everyone has wanted to know what he thinks the company should do next.

Now that the deal is done, that question may fall silent.

No one is asking what he wants from his own life.

When success ends the role

There is something worth noticing in that.

This is not a CEO leaving because he failed. Quite the opposite. His exit may come at the highest point in his career, a point at which his leadership has delivered extraordinary results.

The company has increased significantly in value under his stewardship. The shareholders are happy. His reputation may never have been stronger.

Yet on Monday morning, nobody needs him to run the company. He has to face the fact that he is not part of the succession and, although he may have a long holiday booked and some downtime ahead, the order and structure that have shaped his life have gone.

That is a substantial shift for somebody who has spent years carrying responsibility at the highest level.

Being CEO creates a particular relationship with the world. People want your time, your judgement matters, and you are central in the conversations because ultimately the buck stops with you. Hundreds or thousands of people can be affected by what you decide.

Then the role goes, and something very interesting can happen.

The man remains exactly as capable, experienced and intelligent as he was the week before, but many of the things that reflected his significance back to him have disappeared.

How much of who he sees in the mirror belonged to the man himself, and how much belonged to the role he occupied?

I think that is a deeply interesting question.

What happens to everyone he leaves behind?

A CEO who has been in a business for many years will have developed deep relationships throughout the organisation, particularly within his C-suite and senior leadership team. He will have recruited many of these people, developed them, backed them when things were difficult and spent years building the culture they now lead together.

During an acquisition, he may also know things about their future that he is unable to share with them.

Then, suddenly, he is no longer the man they report to. A new CEO arrives and some destabilisation is inevitable.

Perhaps some will flourish under the new ownership. Others may lose their roles. The culture he helped create may change, and decisions about people he cares deeply about will now be made without him.

For somebody accustomed to carrying responsibility for the organisation, relinquishing the role also means relinquishing control over what happens to it, and to many of the people he has led and served alongside. He may care deeply about what happens next while having to accept that he no longer has a say in it.

For the exiting CEO, the transaction ends. The transition continues.

He will have an idea in his mind of the six months that follow his exit, perhaps a non-executive role, or some coaching and mentoring. He may have a new CEO role lined up and occasionally the transition is almost seamless.

Very often, though, he decides to take some time.

After years of relentless pace, a break sounds enormously attractive. There are holidays to take, people to see, mornings without meetings and perhaps a long list of things he has promised himself he would eventually get around to doing.

And at some point the question he has avoided arrives. It always arrives.

What now?

A man who has spent years with almost every hour accounted for suddenly has a remarkable amount of time and choice.

Usually a man like this will have been thinking about building something of his own. Many CEOs reach this stage wanting to create a business they actually own, to invest, take board positions, mentor younger leaders or build something that feels more closely connected to legacy.

There can be enormous possibility in that period.

There can also be a temptation to fill the space quickly.

The next impressive job can solve the immediate problem of not knowing what to do next. It gives the diary structure again, restores status and responsibility and removes the uncomfortable uncertainty.

Yet the more interesting question may be whether he actually wants another version of the life he has just left.

And then there is money

This is one of the private conversations around transition that can surprise people.

A successful CEO may be extremely wealthy and still harbour a secret fear of running out of money.

For years, there has been a very substantial salary arriving every month, along with bonuses, equity and other rewards. Whatever his net worth, there has been an ongoing flow of income that has supported a particular way of living.

Then it stops.

The numbers may tell him that he has more than enough. A wealth manager may show him precisely how secure he is. Yet the experience of moving from earning significant money to drawing from accumulated wealth can feel entirely different.

What if I never earn that much again?

What if I make the wrong decisions?

What if what I have isn't enough for the life we've created?

What if somehow I lose it?

Those fears do not necessarily disappear because somebody has become wealthy. Sometimes wealth simply gives them larger numbers to attach themselves to.

And that matters when he is deciding what comes next, because fear can quietly turn a period of genuine freedom into another race to secure the next income stream.

Who are you when nobody needs you to be CEO?

The family feels this transition too.

They may have spent years living around the requirements of the role. His partner knows the travel, the calls, the mental presence of the business at home and the reality that something important can interrupt almost anything.

Then suddenly he is there.

Perhaps for the first time in twenty years, he genuinely has nowhere he has to be.

That can be wonderful, and it can change the rhythm of a family that may have spent years organising itself around his absence.

The people around him have built lives while he was building his career. His partner has her own routines, interests and independence. His children may now be adults. Home has evolved around a man whose work occupied a considerable amount of his life.

So this transition reaches well beyond the next job.

What does he want from his marriage, his family, his time, his money and the years ahead?

What has success made possible that he has never had the space to consider?

For years, everyone has wanted to know what he thinks the company should do next.

Perhaps now there is finally room for a different conversation.

What does he want from his own life?

My work is with male CEOs, founders and senior leaders, and these are the conversations that interest me most, because the end of a role can expose questions that achievement has allowed a man to postpone for years.

There may well be another significant role ahead of him. There may be a company of his own, investing, board positions or an entirely new chapter.

He doesn't have to know immediately.

The transaction has ended.

The transition deserves some time.