Passing the baton: Creating value through CEO succession at family businesses

Published 3 February 2026, 20 pages, on 200 publicly traded family-owned businesses across 40 countries and nine sectors, average age 84 years and median annual revenue USD 4.2 billion, whose CEO changed between 2000 and 2020, plus a survey of leaders at 170 distinct family-owned businesses in 36 countries and discussions with 15 more. Total shareholder return declined by 5.7 percentage points on average in the five years after a transition compared with the five years before, and slightly over one third of transitions created value: 39 per cent of transitions to non-family executives against 29 per cent to family executives, but the value-creating family transitions delivered a 23 percentage point TSR increase against 14 points for non-family. McKinsey names neutral governance mechanisms including a dedicated transition committee as one of five foundational practices and describes the whole process as an eight to fifteen year journey.