Workday, PayPal, and The Washington Post Just Ditched Their CEOs. Is More Turnover Coming?

Volatility, activist investors, and transformation pressures will continue to put pressure on CEOs.

BY STEPHANIE MEHTA, CEO AND CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER OF MANSUETO VENTURES, PARENT OF INC. AND FAST COMPANY @STEPHANIEMEHTA

Photos: Afry Harvy/Getty Images; fallydesign/Adobe Stock

Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning.

With apologies to T.S. Eliot, some CEOs are finding that February, not April, may be the cruelest month. In recent weeks, Workday, PayPal, and The Washington Post parted ways with their chief executives, suggesting that high CEO turnover, which reached record levels in recent years, will continue in 2026.

CEO turnover remains high

Russell Reynolds Associates, the global leadership advisory firm, found that 234 CEOs of globally listed companies departed their roles last year, up 16 percent from 2024 and 21 percent above the eight-year average. Last year marked the second consecutive record-breaking year for CEO exits, according to the firm’s Global CEO Turnover Index Report.

The Russell Reynolds report attributes the high turnover in part to pressure from activist investors who want faster results. (Its research shows that 32 CEOs resigned within one year of an activist campaign in 2025, compared to 27 in 2024.) The data also suggests that boards are willing to pull the trigger earlier when performance stalls.

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“It’s too early to predict whether 2026 will set another record for CEO turnover, but the underlying macro pressures—including activist influence, market volatility, and ongoing transformation—remain in place,” says Laura Mantoura, managing director in Russell Reynolds’s U.S. Board & CEO Advisory practice. “As a result, sustained high levels of CEO turnover should be expected.”

However, not everyone is convinced this is the new normal. Andy Challenger, chief revenue officer at global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, sees turnover leveling off after three years of brisk executive change, which followed a reluctance to change leaders during the COVID-19 crisis in 2020 and 2021.

“I think our initial expectation right now is that the demand for change at the top is cooling a bit despite some big recent examples,” he says.

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