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Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! Im Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. With apologies to T.S. Eliot, some CEOs are finding that February, not April, may be the cruelest month. In recent weeks, Workday, PayPal, and The Washington Post parted ways with their chief executives, suggesting that high CEO turnover, which reached record levels in recent years, may continue in 2026. CEO turnover remains high Russell Reynolds Associates, the global leadership advisory firm, found that 234 CEOs of globally listed companies departed their roles last year, up 16% from 2024 and 21% above the eight-year average. Last year marked the second consecutive record-breaking year for CEO exits, according to the firms Global CEO Turnover Index Report. The Russell Reynolds report attributes the high turnover in part to pressure from activist investors who want faster results. (Its research shows that 32 CEOs resigned within one year of an activist campaign in 2025, compared to 27 in 2024.) The data also suggests that boards are willing to pull the trigger earlier when performance stalls. Its too early to predict whether 2026 will set another record for CEO turnover, but the underlying macro pressuresincluding activist influence, market volatility, and ongoing transformationremain in place, says Laura Mantoura, managing director in Russell Reynoldss U.S. Board & CEO Advisory practice. As a result, sustained high levels of CEO turnover should be expected.” However, not everyone is convinced this is the new normal. Andy Challenger, chief revenue officer at global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, sees turnover leveling off after three years of brisk executive change, which followed a reluctance to change leaders during the COVID-19 crisis in 2020 and 2021. I think our initial expectation right now is that the demand for change at the top is cooling a bit despite some big recent examples, he says. Challenger notes that theres one scenario that could trigger another record wave of CEO exits: a recession. Experience wins Investor demands appear to be pushing boards to favor experienced CEOs at public companies. Of the CEOs who took the reins at S&P 500 companies in 2025, 79% were first-time CEOs, down from 83% in 2024, and lower than the eight-year average of 85%, according to Russell Reynolds. That trend is playing out in 2026 succession scenarios: Alex Chriss, who had been an executive vice president at Intuit before becoming CEO of PayPal, is being replaced by Enrique Lores, who spent six years as president and CEO of HP. Workday cofounder Aneel Bhusri, who has served as the software companys CEO or co-CEO at various points during the last 15 years, takes over from Carl Eschenbach, who had been a partner at Sequoia Capital and president and chief operating officer at VMware before joining Workday. Whether the recent spike in CEO turnover represents a temporary surge or permanent shift, executive recruiters and advisers say boards need to prioritize succession planning, and they need to think about the companys needs in the coming years. As leadership expert Bill George has said: Figure out what [the company] is going to need for the next 10 years, and find people with the mental agility and courage to look at it differently than you looked at it. Your leadership outlook Do you see CEO turnover continuing at a rapid pace? Or are you, like Challenger, expecting it to level off? Let me know your thoughts. My email address is stephaniemehta@mansueto.com. Read more: CEO turnover The surprising power of interim CEOs How two CEOs hold themselves to a high productivity standard AI is rewriting the CEO job description. Are you ready?
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Picture a memory from childhood, one that feels real and nostalgic, but somehow just out of grasp: perhaps a family trip to the beach, or a moment mid-swing on the playset, or an afternoon spent hunting for four-leaf clovers. Now, imagine that you could bottle that golden moment into a fragrance. One scientist at MIT, Cyrus Clarke, is working to do just that. Alongside a team of fellow researchers, Clarke has developed a physical machine called the Anemoia Device, which uses a generative AI model to analyze an archival photograph, describe it in a short sentence, and, following the users own inputs, convert that description into a unique fragrance. The word anemoia was coined by author John Koenig and included in his 2021 book, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. It refers to a specific feeling of nostalgia for a time or place that one never actually experienced themselvesand its exactly what Clarkes team hopes to capture with the Anemoia Device. According to a paper published by the team, the device explores the concept of extended memory, or the idea that, in the digital age, memory is increasingly stored and accessed through external media, like digital archives. Studies have already shown that memory can be formed vicariouslylike when a second-hand account, perhaps from a parent, shapes ones own memoriesbut the Anemoia Device is a delightfully physical, interactive experiment into how AI might allow users to experience a memory of a past they never actually lived. [Photo: Cyrus Clarke/courtesy MIT Media Lab] The Anemoia Device The Anemoia Device looks like something that one might find in the medical bay of a retro sci-fi spaceship. Its a slim, metal-and-plastic contraption accented with a singular neon green screen and a simple array of three physical dials. At the bottom, a glass beaker waits to catch the final fragrance. [Photo: Cyrus Clarke/courtesy MIT Media Lab] To start, a user inserts a photograph into the device. A built-in vision-language model (VLM) analyzes the image and generates an initial caption based on what it finds. For a picture of tourists in China, an example used in the paper, the device might write, A tourist in black shorts and a child pose in the doorway along the Great Wall of China, with the iconic stone steps and mountainous landscape stretching up toward the sky. [Photo: Cyrus Clarke/courtesy MIT Media Lab] Users can then adjust the parameters of the caption with the three dials: one to decide which person or object in the image should be the subject; a second to describe the age of the subject; and a third to describe the mood of the scene. [Photo: Cyrus Clarke/courtesy MIT Media Lab] “Im personally very interested in inventing new physical interfaces for generative AI,” Clarke says. “Generative AI usually starts with a blank prompt. The dials replace that with a physical, easy to understand grammar. Youre not trying to say the right thing to an algorithm, its more akin to tuning an instrument.” A language-learning model (LLM), built from ChatGPT-4o, aggregates the original caption and the user’s inputs into a short, poetic narrative. If one were to select the Great Wall of China itself as the subject of the aforementioned prompt, the result would be something like, For centuries, from the Warring States to the Ming, Ive joyfully observed times march and countless travelers along my path of stone, brick, and wood. Next comes the LLMs most impressive task: converting this written poe into a tangible scent. [Photo: Cyrus Clarke/courtesy MIT Media Lab] Smell as a memory portal The scent-development process relies not just on identifying the appropriate olfactory notes, but also on evoking the right emotions. Clarkes team trained the model to select from a scent library of 39 different fragrances (since expanded to a broader portfolio of 50 scents), ranging from old books to leather and dirt. Each fragrance was coded with a set of descriptors, labeling them with details like their primary notes, associated concepts, and strongest emotions. The LLM uses its training to select the right fragrances and determine how much of each should be used in the final concoction. All of that information is funneled to a custom olfactory display, which uses four pumps to draw the necessary liquid out of their vials and into the waiting beaker (the final formula for the Great Wall of China fragrance includes campfire, dirt, cedar, and bamboo). The Anemoia Device is capable of capturing an essentially infinite range of fragrances, from the smell of a sandy beach on a hot summer day in the 80s to the aroma of a couple enjoying a pear in a scenic garden. Ultimately, the study concludes, the device is a provocation that asks “what it means to remember when memory itself can be generated, what it means to feel when that feeling is co-authored with a machine, and what it means to be human when we can craft beautiful, fragrant fictions of pasts we have never lived.”
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Integrity, understood as a disposition to behave in prosocial, ethical, and principled ways rather than corrupt or self-serving ones, is among the strongest and most consistent predictors of job performance and leadership effectiveness. The reason is far from mysterious. Leadership, whatever its context, is a collective enterprise. No meaningful goal, from building empires to running companies, has ever been achieved alone. Across history, not just in humans but also other animals, cooperation has depended less on raw power than on trust. Ancient trading societies flourished precisely because reputation constrained behavior: merchants in Phoenician city-states, medieval guilds, and Silk Road networks relied on repeated interactions and informal enforcement mechanisms to ensure that partners honored their commitments. Those who cheated were excluded, not merely judged. Trust, in effect, functioned as an early mechanism for coordination and enforcement. The same logic applies in modern organizations. Teams perform better when members believe that leaders will act fairly, keep promises, and avoid exploiting asymmetries of information or power, or are so focused on their personal gain that they have little concern in harming the group. In line, research shows that leaders perceived as lacking integrity struggle to attract talent, elicit discretionary effort, or sustain collaboration over time. Conversely, leaders known for ethical consistency benefit from faster coordination, lower monitoring costs, and greater willingness among others to take risks on their behalf. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/tcp-photo-syndey-16X9.jpg","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/tcp-photo-syndey-1x1-2.jpg","eyebrow":"","headline":"Get more insights from Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic","dek":"Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is a professor of organizational psychology at UCL and Columbia University, and the co-founder of DeeperSignals. He has authored 15 books and over 250 scientific articles on the psychology of talent, leadership, AI, and entrepreneurship. ","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"Learn More","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/drtomas.com\/intro\/","theme":{"bg":"#2b2d30","text":"#ffffff","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#3b3f46","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91424798,"imageMobileId":91424800,"shareable":false,"slug":""}} The cost of distrust Given a choice, people prefer to collaborate with those they trust not because they are nave, but because distrust is expensive. Working with unreliable or unethical partners increases the likelihood of failure, conflict, and reputational damage. In business, this may mean backing leaders who misrepresent performance or shift blame. In politics, it can mean empowering those who erode institutions for personal gain. In both cases, the costs are borne not only by the followers but by the system as a whole. This is why chronic corruption is one of the most reliable markers of institutional breakdown. As documented year after year by Transparency International in its Corruption Perceptions Index, countries that score lowest on integrity and trust tend to share familiar pathologies: weak rule of law, politicized institutions, capital flight, and persistent underinvestment, generally caused by parasitic governments and destructive leadership. By contrast, countries that consistently rank at the top of integrity and trust measures benefit from stronger institutions, more predictable governance, and higher levels of social and economic cooperation. To be sure, these societies are not free of self-interest or ambition; rather, they have succeeded in aligning incentives so that ethical behavior is rewarded and corruption is costly, censoring selfish short-term individual gains in favor of collective long-term benefits. Measuring integrity So, how can we tell whether a person has integrity, or gauge someones moral reliability? The question is especially consequential when applied to leaders, whose decisions shape the success, welfare, and future prospects of others. Fortunately, behavioral science offers several useful insights, even if it stops short of perfect certainty. First, integrity is not directly observable. Unlike physical attributes such as height or hair color, it cannot be seen or measured at a glance. Instead, it is inferred or deducted from patterns of behavior, consistency over time, and alignment between words and deeds. Integrity is therefore an attribution rather than a trait we can observe directly, which makes assessment inherently probabilistic rather than definitive. Second, short-term interactions are often misleading. Because appearing ethical brings clear benefits (trust, influence, reduced scrutiny, and access to resources) people are incentivized to signal integrity even when they lack it. This helps explain why superficially ethical environments can sometimes attract parasitic actors who exploit the goodwill and assumptions of others. In contrast, in persistently corrupt settings, distrust becomes the default, and even well-intentioned individuals are treated with suspicion. Context shapes both behavior and perception. A parallel and increasingly robust line of evidence comes from research on the so-called dark traits, narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. Although conceptually distinct, these traits share a common core of low empathy, emotional coldness, and a tendency to instrumentalize others. From an integrity standpoint, this combination is toxic. Individuals high on these traits are less constrained by guilt or concern for others, more willing to bend or ignore rules, and more likely to justify unethical behavior as necessary, deserved, or clever rather than wrong. Psychopathy is most directly linked to callousness and fearlessness, reducing sensitivity to punishment and moral emotion. Machiavellianism predicts strategic deception, cynicism about human motives, and a belief that ends justify means. Narcissism, especially in its more grandiose forms, adds entitlement and moral exceptionalism, the belief that normal rules apply to others but not to oneself. Together, these traits reliably predict counterproductive work behaviors, ethical transgressions, and integrity failures, particularly in roles that confer power, discretion, and weak oversight. Crucially, this is not because such individuals lack intelligence or self-control, but because their motivational architecture is misaligned with prosocial norms. Where integrity depends on empathy, respect for authority, and an internalized concern for collective outcomes, dark traits tilt decison making toward self-interest, dominance, and short term gain, making them among the strongest dispositional red flags for integrity risk in organizational life. Third, while integrity cannot be measured perfectly, it can be assessed meaningfully. Research shows that peer ratings are among the most reliable indicators, precisely because integrity is reputational: it reveals itself in how people behave when others depend on them. Longitudinal data, such as 360-degree feedback, is especially informative. Personality traits like conscientiousness, altruism, and self-control (including the capacity to self-edit) also predict ethical conduct, as does past behavior. Self-reports are often dismissed, but well-designed measures still differentiate reliably between individuals with higher and lower integrity. Track records matter, even if they do not render anyone immune to temptation. As Warren Buffett famously observed, reputation takes a lifetime to build and a moment to destroy. Finally, the environment matters. Ethical failures are not only the result of bad apples, but also of rotten barrels. Weak governance, misaligned incentives, and tolerance for small transgressions can erode integrity even among otherwise decent individuals, while well-designed systems can reinforce ethical behavior by making misconduct costly and transparency unavoidable. Sapping growth Taken together, these points suggest that integrity is neither inscrutable nor guaranteed. Whether in governments, firms, or teams, integrity functions as an enabling condition for coordination and progress. When trust erodes, actors devote more effort to monitoring, hedging, and self-protection, leaving less energy for innovation or growth. In this sense, integrity is not merely a moral ideal, but a form of social infrastructure: largely invisible when it works, and painfully obvious when it does not. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/tcp-photo-syndey-16X9.jpg","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/tcp-photo-syndey-1x1-2.jpg","eyebrow":"","headline":"Get more insights from Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic","dek":"Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is a professor of organizational psychology at UCL and Columbia University, and the co-founder of DeeperSignals. He has authored 15 books and over 250 scientific articles on the psychology of talent, leadership, AI, and entrepreneurship. 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