Succession Planning: The Conversation Indian Boards Are Avoiding

CXO India Insights conducts an annual governance survey of board members across listed and large private Indian companies. The succession planning findings from the 2025 edition are uncomfortable reading. Fewer than a third of responding boards reported having an active, documented succession plan for the CEO role. Among those who said they did, nearly half acknowledged that the plan had not been reviewed in over two years. And a significant minority admitted that their succession plan amounted to "we know who we would call if we needed to." This is not a uniquely Indian governance failure — succession planning is perennially underdone in boardrooms globally. But the Indian context adds specific complications. Many large Indian companies operate in the shadow of founding families who are ambivalent about the formal succession process because it forces conversations about the next generation's readiness that are emotionally difficult. Promoter-controlled listed companies face particular challenges: SEBI's governance expectations around succession are clear, but enforcement has been uneven. The boards that manage succession well share a set of practices that are not complicated but require consistent discipline. They treat succession as an ongoing governance process rather than a crisis-response mechanism — which means they are building internal leadership pipelines, conducting regular talent reviews at the senior level, and periodically stress-testing their emergency succession options. They are candid with the incumbent CEO about the process — experience shows that transparency, handled well, actually motivates rather than unsettles a confident leader. And they engage a qualified external adviser to structure the process and challenge their assumptions.