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FTSE 100 CEO Exit Shock: Now About Succession Planning....

This article is more than 9 years old.

In the UK, succession planning has recently come to the forefront of the agenda for institutional investors keen for more and better engagement with publicly listed companies. This morning it became evident once again that 'succession planning' may be in need of a clearer definition, if there is to be such better engagement.

Thomas Cook Group plc , the FTSE 100 travel company, chose a regulatory announcement at 7am to announce the shock departure of CEO Harriet Green after only two years in the role. It also reported results - revenues for the full year to September 30  of £8.58bn ($13.5bn) down £727m from the previous year - and warned of tougher conditions ahead. As markets opened, the share sell-off began and at one stage the shares were down over 20%.

Peter Fankhauser , who has held a number of senior roles over the last 13 years at Thomas Cook and was promoted to Chief Operating Officer in November 2013, is to take over from Ms Green as CEO. He has over twenty years of experience in the travel market and before joining Thomas Cook he was responsible for managing and growing the European division and overseas business of Kuoni, the statement said.

Michael Healy is to continue to serve as Group Chief Financial Officer, and Christoph Debus as Chief Air Travel Officer. There are still three women -as  non-executive directors - on the company's board.  But it is a board that has been entirely replaced in 2011, with only one non-executive director serving since 2010.

Frank Meysman, chairman of Thomas Cook made a telling statement. He said: "Harriet has had a highly positive impact on this company. We emerge from her transformation stronger, with a clear strategy, world-class leadership team, updated brand, and a renewed focus on the customer. The succession plan she devised will now take effect and the new chief executive, Peter, will drive the company forward as we focus on winning the commercial battle against other operators."

The succession plan "she devised" ? In fact, part of Thomas Cook's problem may well be that its story since Harriet Green took over  as CEO has been overtaken by the 'personal rise of Harriet Green' story.

The Financial Times  (carefully) reported Mr Meysman as saying that "the change of chief executive was agreed unanimously by the board, but that Ms Green did not have another job lined up."

Ms Green hit the headlines when she cold-called Mr Meysman and persuaded him she was the right person for the CEO role. At the time she was also briefly very outspoken about headhunters - and the need to avoid them if you truly wanted to succeed. But she soon stepped away from that stance and retreated till the story died down.

Then she chose to carefully build her public image as she was increasingly in the media spotlight for a significant turnaround in the fortunes of the business.

That media spotlight is also likely to have played its part in her scooping of the much-coveted  Veuve Clicquot Businesswoman Award this year, which I attended. She was by far the most 'visible' of those on the shortlist and the only one easily identifiable as promoting a personal brand.

Karen Blackett, CEO of Mediacom UK and also on that list, has since been awarded an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List and is also the first businesswoman to top the Powerlist 100, which champions the most influential black people in Britain today.

There have been many media profiles of Harriet Green in the last two years, one of which was early this year in Management Today.  As an attractive woman with an astute sense of the dramatic, it reveals someone who is adept at having the media project  exactly the image she would like them to project.

Near the end, she is quoted as saying: "CEOs spend too long in the same job. You should do what you have to do, have maybe a couple of years hugging everyone and then move on. I think that adds up to six or seven years, not 16 or 17.'

But Ms Green has dramatically walked away after just two years - and from a business where some say the "easy changes" - including firing a lot of people and a significant digital transformation of the business-  have been made, and the hard bit is yet to come.

This morning's events at Thomas Cook are unlikely to ease investor minds about better succession planning in business. They should also make it clear that there is one thing you can safely say about the  issue of public recognition of women in business - it's complicated.