Jeff Green, Bloomberg, December 19, 2017
The same-day deaths of two aging chief executive officers — industry icons in railroading and banking — show why some investors and governance experts want companies to disclose more about succession plans and the health of their executives.
CSX Corp.’s Hunter Harrison, 73, died Saturday, one day after news of his medical leave pushed the railroad’s shares down the most in six years. M&T Bank Corp. said Robert Wilmers passed away “suddenly and unexpectedly” at age 83 — just months after the death of his own heir apparent.
These earthly departures underscore the privacy, governance and legal issues entangled in one fact of shifting demographics: As the U.S. population ages, so too do the chieftains of Corporate America.
“What we’re facing is the new paradigm of work,” said Davia Temin, head of the New York-based crisis-management firm Temin & Co. “When people are in the zone of what they love to do, most of them are not going to voluntarily give that up. That means that people will work later, and maybe with a little bit more of an illusion that death won’t apply to them.” […read more]