How Long Does a CHRO Really Last?

When people ask me, “What’s the average tenure of a CHRO?” they’re usually looking for a simple answer.

Published research suggests it’s around five years. Russell Reynolds Associates’ Global CHRO Turnover Index, for example, puts the average tenure of outgoing CHROs at large public companies at approximately 5.2 years.

That’s a useful benchmark.

But after years of recruiting HR executives, I’ve come to believe it’s also one of those numbers that needs context.

A CHRO at a Fortune 500 company isn’t necessarily hired for the same mission as a CHRO at a private equity portfolio company, a founder-led business or a high-growth organization.

And that has a significant impact on tenure.

This is particularly noticeable in private equity.

A PE-backed company may hire one CHRO to professionalize HR after an acquisition, build the leadership team and establish the infrastructure the company needs to scale.

Three years later, the business may need something completely different.

It might be integrating acquisitions, preparing for an exit, restructuring the organization or moving from an entrepreneurial operating model to a much more sophisticated one.

The CHRO who was exactly right for the first phase may not necessarily be the CHRO the company needs for the next one.

That doesn’t mean the first CHRO failed.

Sometimes it means they did exactly what they were hired to do.

This is one of the things I see from the search desk that doesn’t always show up in published tenure statistics.

When I look at a CHRO who has spent three years in a PE-backed company, I don’t automatically see short tenure.

I want to know what they were hired to accomplish.

What did the company look like when they arrived? What did they build? How much did the business change? Was there an acquisition or exit?

And most importantly, was their work finished?

Those questions tell you considerably more about an HR executive than the number of years next to a company name.

The same applies when CEOs and boards think about their current CHRO.

The question isn’t simply, “How long have they been here?”

It’s:

Is the CHRO we have today the right HR leader for the next phase of the business?

That’s a very different question.

I went deeper into the numbers, the differences between public companies, private equity portfolio companies and startups, and what we’re seeing in the executive search market in the full From the Search Desk article.

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