What Skills Do Today’s Retail CEOs Absolutely Require?

In a lengthy piece penned for Modern Retail, reporter Allison Smith compared the Great Resignation that took place for many front-line workers during the COVID-19 pandemic to a similar churn going on in retail c-suites.

“More than 1,500 chief executives have left their posts so far this year through August, up 4% from last year and the highest on record over that period since business and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas began tracking CEO churn in 2002. Retail companies are leading the charge,” Smith wrote.

Major retail names such as Kohl’s, Kroger, and Ulta have seen CEO departures so far in 2025, with 41 notable CEO exits having taken place year-to-date, per Challenger, Gray & Christmas data presented at the end of September. That statistic registers as a 116% increase over the 19 CEO exits which were notched during the same time frame in 2024. Andrew Challenger, labor expert for the firm, noted that “Overall CEO exits are up, but retail really stands out,” when discussing the data.

“While the ‘Great Resignation’ among rank-and-file workers has largely receded with the pandemic, leadership experts say a similar phenomenon is now unfolding at the top, with retail CEOs under growing pressure to deliver results in a volatile economy,” Smith added.

Majority of Retail CEO Exits Were Unplanned This Year, With Experts Citing Various Factors

Russell Reynolds Associates, a leadership advisory firm, provided data indicating that a majority (64%) of retail CEO departures in 2025 thus far were unplanned — grouping “removals, abrupt retirements, and internal role shifts,” as Smith underscored — and only a little more than a quarter (29%) were planned retirements, as perhaps could be expected. Maly Bernstein of Bluemercury, Dave Kimbell of Ulta Beauty, and Ashley Buchanan of Kohl’s were three high-profile executives singled out as examples of this trend.

Norm Yustin, global omnichannel retail and luxury practice leader at Russell Reynolds Associates, was quoted on the matter.

“It’s not just a natural evolution of leadership cycles. Quick changes in strategy require different leadership skills,” Yustin said, pointing toward a much larger ask of modernization (pertaining to digitization and AI in particular) while keeping profits steady as macroeconomic headwinds persist.

“There are shorter ‘prove-it’ clocks. Boards are shortening the runway to these turnarounds or transformations,” Yustin concluded.

Then Versus Now: Commentary on Skills Retail CEOs Need To Have in Today’s Business Environment

Two voices were brought to bear on the topic of which skills were becoming more of a “must-have” in the contemporary retail c-suite: the aforementioned Yustin and Craig Rowley, senior client partner at Korn Ferry.

For his part, Rowley highlighted that retailers historically had looked for leaders bearing a history of specific related expertise, such as sourcing and buying inventory.

“That skill set doesn’t necessarily go away,” but has become less of a cornerstone of what retailers are looking for in a CEO, per Rowley.

Tech-savvy seems to be the most central demand placed on retail leadership candidates in 2025 and moving forward, for Yustin — in addition to a more jack-of-all-trades fit.

“Retail CEOs now need to be technologists, in addition to merchants, in addition to mark marketers, in addition to supply chain leaders,” Yustin suggested. But these so-called hybrid leaders are scarce, given the multitude of different pools of expertise they are expected to draw from.

And with ongoing uncertainty due to tariffs and the overall state of the U.S. consumer, CEO turnover is likely to remain high until stability once again reigns, with both Crowley and Yustin agreeing on this point.