Boards Keep Rehiring Old CEOs.
That's a Succession Failure.

Three major boards did the same thing in the past two years. They pushed out a CEO. Then they called the last one back.

Boards frame it as stability. The research disagrees.

Three Boards, Same Move

Nike, Vail Resorts and UnitedHealth all did this between late 2024 and mid-2025. A successor struggled or exited early. A predecessor came back to the same chair.

None of these companies planned to hire the same person twice. Each board arrived there because its other options ran out.

Who Actually Came Back

Nike moved first. John Donahoe took over in 2020 and struggled with direct-to-consumer strategy and wholesale relationships.

The board named Elliott Hill as CEO in September 2024. He's a 31-year Nike veteran who'd retired in 2020.

Vail Resorts followed a similar path. Kirsten Lynch led through a contentious 12-week labor strike. She also faced heavy shareholder pressure from activist investor Late Apex.

Rob Katz ran Vail for 16 years, then returned as CEO in 2025. He'd stepped back in 2021.

UnitedHealth's version came under harsher circumstances. Andrew Witty retired citing personal reasons. Weak earnings and a Department of Justice inquiry came first.

So did the December 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Board chairman and former longtime CEO Stephen Hemsley stepped back into the top job.

What the Research Says

A University of North Carolina Kenan Institute study tracked 167 boomerang CEOs. All sat in the S&P Composite 1500. Their annual stock performance ran 10.1% below first-time CEOs.

The gap held even against other leaders hired specifically to handle a crisis. Boomerangs weren't just facing harder starting conditions. They underperformed leaders facing similarly hard conditions.

Deb Rubin is with RHR International. She told Fortune a returning CEO's playbook "might still be applicable, but it might not."

Jeanne Branthover of DHR Global said the move signals a failure. The board may have failed to develop internal talent.

She said it also raises fair questions about fit with today's AI and remote-work environment.

Why Boards Reach Backward

Korn Ferry consultants describe the mechanism plainly. Bradford Frank told the firm's own publication a boomerang hire "buy[s] the board time."

That happens when better options don't exist.

Kristi Drew, also of Korn Ferry, put it more bluntly. Many organizations are "woefully behind" on succession planning.

A familiar name is a fast decision when the board has no other one.

CEO turnover made the timing worse. Departures in April 2025 alone rose 70% year over year, per Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Boards under pressure to move quickly default to whoever they already trust.

The Real Failure Is Upstream

A boomerang hire is a symptom, not the disease. The disease is what happened, or didn't happen, in the years before. That's before the successor was even named.

Fewer than half of employees say they have a clear view of their career path. That's per Gartner data cited by ERE.net.

Keyia Burton of Gartner puts it plainly. Companies buy executive talent externally because "it might simply be easier" than building it.

That choice has a cost. It surfaces years later as an empty bench when the current CEO leaves. This is a leadership succession planning failure long before it's a CEO-search problem.

When a Boomerang Actually Works

Steve Jobs at Apple and Howard Schultz's first Starbucks return are the cases everyone cites. Both had a clear turnaround thesis. Neither fought the environment that had changed around them.

John Long of Korn Ferry names the harder variable. "[O]ften the environment has changed dramatically since the last time they were in charge."

Founders returning to their own company, like Jack Dorsey at Twitter, are a different case. A career executive like Elliott Hill is returning to a company he didn't found.

Check how long it's been since your last internal successor was named ready, not just identified. If that answer is "years" or "never," a boomerang hire is already your most likely outcome, whether or not the board has admitted it yet.

If You Sit on a Board

Treat every boomerang headline as a diagnostic, not a case study to imitate. Ask what your internal bench looked like the last time a CEO left without warning.

Only 22 S&P 500 companies have made this move since 2010, per Spencer Stuart. Rare doesn't mean irrelevant.

Each instance gets outsized scrutiny. Yours will too, if it happens on your watch.

The fix predates the crisis. Build named, tested internal candidates before a successor is even chosen. Then a returning predecessor is a choice, not the only option.

Frequently Asked Questions