Raymond Cheung
Chartered Actuary · CRO · Board Adviser · Singapore
CEO succession planning in Singapore boards usually starts too late. Drawing on my own time as a listed-company CEO, here is why boards avoid the conversation and the three separate plans every board should have in place before it needs them.
When I was CEO of a Nasdaq-listed company, the board asked me, in my first year, to name my successor. I gave them two names and a confident paragraph about each. Neither person was ready, and I knew it. What I had handed the board was not a succession plan. It was an answer designed to end the conversation, and the board accepted it because it ended the conversation for them too. [CONFIRM with Raymond: replace with a real episode if possible]
I have since sat on the other side of that table, as a statutory CRO reporting to boards and now as an adviser to them, and I see the same exchange repeated in Singapore boardrooms. CEO succession is in the nominating committee's terms of reference. It is mentioned in the annual report. It is rarely a live conversation until the CEO resigns, falls ill or loses the board's confidence, and by then the board is choosing under pressure from a list nobody properly prepared.
Why Singapore boards avoid the conversation
The reasons are human, not technical. Raising succession with a successful CEO feels like a vote of no confidence. Many listed companies here have a controlling shareholder, so the real decision may sit with the family or the parent, and independent directors defer. And in a small market, the obvious external candidates are people directors know socially, which makes a discreet assessment awkward.
The Code of Corporate Governance does address it. Provision 4.1 has the nominating committee make recommendations to the board on succession plans, in particular for the chairman, the CEO and key management personnel. But a committee that reviews a plan is not the same as a board that owns one, and that gap is where most of the problems I see begin.
The market data points the same way. Heidrick & Struggles' Route to the Top Singapore 2026 report, published on 7 October and based on the CEOs of STI 30 companies, found no clear consensus on what the next CEO should look like. Earlier Heidrick research found most Singapore organisations lack alignment between business strategy and how they manage their leadership pipeline. In my experience those two findings are the same problem.
“If the board has not agreed what the strategy needs from the next CEO, no pipeline can be aligned to it.”
Three plans, not one
When I review a board's CEO succession arrangements, I look for three separate plans, because they answer three different questions.
- Emergency cover: who runs the company on Monday if the CEO cannot, for how long, and with what authority. This should be a named person, already briefed, with a written delegation the board has approved.
- Planned transition: the three to five year view. Which internal candidates could be ready, what each needs to get there, and when the board will next assess them in person.
- Unplanned departure: the six to twelve month scenario where the CEO leaves on their own terms or the board's. This needs an external benchmark, a search relationship that is not starting from zero, and agreement on who leads the process.
Most boards I see have a version of the second plan and assume it covers the other two. It does not. The emergency plan is the one investors and regulators care about most when something goes wrong, and it is usually the one written last. For a Singapore-incorporated insurer, where the CEO appointment needs MAS approval, it also has to allow for that process, which I touched on in my piece on the MAS corporate governance guidelines for insurers.
What good looks like in practice
Temasek is a useful reference point. Its board conducts leadership succession reviews every year as a matter of good governance, with candidates ranging from people who could step in immediately to younger executives who might be successors beyond a five-year horizon (MOF). Most listed companies do not need that scale, but they do need the habit: succession as a standing agenda item, not an event.
The practices I push for are not complicated:
- The full board, not just the NC, agrees a written profile for the next CEO, derived from the strategy, and revisits it whenever the strategy changes.
- Internal candidates are seen by the board in settings other than polished presentations: site visits, informal dinners, leading a committee discussion on their area.
- Each candidate has a development plan with a named owner, and the board hears progress against it once a year.
- The CEO is accountable for building the bench, and that accountability shows up in their performance review and remuneration.
- The independent directors meet once a year without the CEO to discuss succession candidly.
That last practice matters most where there is a controlling shareholder. Independent directors cannot override a family or parent on who runs the business. They can insist that the decision is made against an agreed profile, with real alternatives on the table, and that their view is recorded. That is what their duty requires, and it is what minority shareholders are relying on.
The conflict inside the CEO's role
Boards often delegate the pipeline to the incumbent CEO, which is sensible up to a point. The CEO knows the candidates best. The CEO also has the least incentive to produce a successor who looks ready early, which is exactly what I did in the story I opened with. The fix is not to exclude the CEO. It is to give the board its own line of sight: direct exposure to candidates, independent assessment where the stakes justify it, and a chair willing to raise the topic regularly enough that it stops feeling like a threat.
This connects to how the board looks at itself. A board that evaluates its own performance honestly, the subject of my piece on board effectiveness evaluation, usually finds succession near the top of the list of things it says it oversees but does not. CEO succession also sits alongside the board's own renewal, which I covered in director succession planning for nominating committees. A board in the middle of a disorderly refresh is in a poor position to run a CEO transition well.
Where to start this quarter
If your board has not discussed CEO succession substantively in the past year, I would put three items on the next NC agenda: confirm the emergency cover arrangement in writing, ask the CEO to present the internal bench with a frank readiness view for each name, and agree when the full board will spend time with those candidates. None of that requires a search firm or a crisis. It requires the chair to accept a slightly uncomfortable meeting now in exchange for avoiding a very uncomfortable one later.
CEO succession is the decision a board will be judged on longest. If you want an independent view of how ready your board really is, this is work I do with Singapore boards.
Common Questions
Who is responsible for CEO succession planning in a Singapore listed company?
Under Provision 4.1 of Singapore's Code of Corporate Governance, the nominating committee makes recommendations to the board on succession plans, in particular for the chairman, the CEO and key management personnel. The decision and accountability sit with the full board. In practice the CEO builds the internal bench, the NC reviews it, and the board should agree the profile for the next CEO and approve the plan.
What should an emergency CEO succession plan include?
A named interim leader who has already been briefed, a written delegation of authority approved by the board, an expected duration, and a communications plan for staff, investors and regulators. For MAS-regulated institutions it should also cover the regulatory approval steps for any replacement. The board should review it at least annually and whenever the senior team changes.
How often should a Singapore board review CEO succession?
At least once a year as a standing agenda item, not only when the CEO signals departure. Temasek's board, for example, reviews leadership succession annually. The board should also revisit the plan when strategy changes, because the profile of the right next CEO changes with it.
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About the author
Raymond Cheung is a Chartered Actuary, C-suite executive and board adviser with more than 20 years of experience across Asia in risk management, insurance, ESG and corporate governance. He is the CEO of CER Consultancy and an accredited trainer at SMU Academy and the Singapore College of Insurance.