2 CEO deaths revive corporate transparency push

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 died “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. The average age of a CEO has risen 4 percent in the last decade and there has been at least one health-related change atop Standard & Poor’s 500 Index companies in each of the past three years, according to executive recruiter Spencer Stuart.

“What we’re facing is the new paradigm of work,” said Davia Temin, head of the New Yorkbased 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.”

Companies may be forced to act as that illusion fades. Even with the deaths of Wilmer and Harrison, data compiled by Bloomberg shows there are still 50 CEOs in the S&P 500 who are 65 or older. Nineteen of those exceed age 70, and three, including Warren Buffett, are older than 80.

Spencer Stuart reports average ages of 57.4 years for S&P 500 bosses and 63.1 for the directors who hire and fire them — gaining two years over the past decade.