Toyota this month promoted its finance chief to CEO. As did Kayak. So did the parent company of Chuck E. Cheese.
If you’ve been watching the headlines recently, it’s clear that the CFO-to-CEO pipeline remains robust. Recent research from executive search from Crist Kolder quantifies just how common this trend has become.
In 2025, 10.26% of sitting CEOs at Fortune 500 and S&P 500 firms came directly from the CFO role. That’s the highest level of CFO-to-CEO promotions seen in a decade, according to Crist Kolder Associates’ 2025 Volatility report released Jan. 28. For comparison, 7.1% of CEOs at such companies were promoted from CFO in 2024.
All observed CFO-to-CEO promotions last year were internal, according to the report, which studied corporate leadership at 664 companies in total.
For what it’s worth, chief operating officers and presidents were still the likeliest among observed C-Suite roles to get bumped up to chief executive.
“The COO/President role has historically been the No. 2 and CEO-in-waiting position. While that is still the case (nearly 44% of the time), now CFOs with a broader mandate than finance are carving a path to CEO,” said Kristy Honiotes, managing director at Crist Kolder, in an email to CFO.com. “With 78 recorded CEO turnovers in 2025, two or three CFO-to-CEO promotions can make a difference in the percentage. We expect it to continue to trend upwards as the CFO scope of responsibilities continues to expand.”
Finance chiefs were also the likeliest among observed C-Suite positions to switch jobs. Crist Kolder documented 120 CFO turnovers in 2025, which was notably higher than the number of CEO turnovers (78) and COOs (61). The company, which provides recruiting services for CEOs and CFOs, only tracked changes for CEOs, CFOs and COOs in the report.
At the same time, the study shows that companies are increasingly looking within for their next CFO. Last year, 35% of CFOs were external hires, down from 47.1% in 2024. Just about a quarter (24.4%) of chief executives were external hires, up just about three percentage points over the prior year.
Across industries, CEOs had an average tenure of about 7.5 years, while CFOs stayed in their jobs for about 4.7 years, according to Honiotes. While chief executives reach the top job with “nowhere else to go other than leave or move to the board full time,” the modern-day CFO role offers “much more upside than ever before,” she said.
“They can broaden into areas outside of finance, including general management and operations,” she said of CFOs. “Today’s CFO is often looking for more of a strategic, business partner role leading them to move into areas outside of the traditional finance path. CFO doesn’t have to be the end-all be-all. Private equity has also played a big role in pulling talent from the public markets as they look to establish public-readiness in their portfolio companies.”
Meanwhile, women’s representation in the C-Suite, though marginally declining year-over-year in 2025, has been trending upward over the last 10 years. According to Crist Kolder, 9.1% of CEOs at Fortune 500s and S&P 500 companies were female in 2025, down from 9.7% in the prior year but up from just 4.3% in 2015. On the CFO side, 16.5% of finance chiefs of such companies were female last year, compared to 17.6% in 2024.
Notably, the number of women CFOs in the consumer space has “declined dramatically in the past two years,” hitting 17 in 2025, according to the report. That was down from 26 in 2024 and 30 in 2023.
“During times of macro-economic challenges (including rising inflation, global tariffs, debt load, labor challenges, etc.), the requirement for a proven, pressure-tested CFO is critical,” Honiotes said. “While female representation continues to trend in the right direction, the lack of historical diversity at the C-Suite level still exists. Consumer, as an industry, is one that has been impacted dramatically by those macro challenges listed above.”
