A new generation of customized leadership simulations aims to show how executive contenders perform under pressure.
How Boards Are Reducing the Guesswork For Picking CEOs
The board had narrowed the field down to its final CEO candidates. The résumés were impressive. The interviews went well. But directors still couldn’t quite decide: Which candidate’s style of leadership would best fit the company’s strategic priorities? So, they added an additional assessment: putting the CEOs through custom-built role-play simulations.
Welcome to the world of CEO succession and executive search, where résumés, interviews, and experience are no longer enough. Firms are now also asking CEO candidates to take part in personalized simulations to see how they respond to issues specific to the company’s business. Boilerplate executive role-plays have existed in executive searches for decades, says Stuart Crandell, senior client partner in Board and CEO services at Korn Ferry. What’s new is the ability to rapidly design simulations, often by employing AI, that are “specific and unique to an organization, and tailored to that business’s strategic challenges,” Crandell says.
Certainly, boards are looking to improve their selection process. According to a recent Korn Ferry survey, 64 percent of board directors and CEOs say their organization’s risk exposure has increased over the past year, yet only 50 percent are confident in their C-suite leaders’ ability to drive performance over the next three years. Another recent study found that fewer than half of board directors are confident that their internal CEO succession plans will succeed. Meanwhile, CEO turnover is rising: A recent study found that 2025 marked an eight-year high in CEO turnovers globally, adding to board pressure to find the right person for the corner office.
Traditional assessments of CEO candidates have typically relied on data garnered from interviews, previous work experience, and psychometrics—and sometimes mock business exercises. Today’s role-playing simulations, however, customize those exercises around a company’s actual strategic priorities, giving boards valuable insight into how candidates might perform in relevant situations. AI-assisted design is employed to make these simulations immersive and high-impact, forgoing generic CEO competency measures for a much more fine-tuned approach. Real-Play, Korn Ferry’s simulation product for executive searches, for example, “helps de-risk the selection process because it provides a way to measure a candidate’s ability to drive impact against a strategic priority,” says Ginna Martin, an associate client partner at Korn Ferry.
Incorporating a board’s strategic priorities into the simulations can reveal how candidates are likely to approach the challenges that matter most to the business. For example, a pharmaceutical company prioritizing innovation might request a simulation in which CEO candidates navigate conversations with an R&D leader, a board member, and an analyst. In a recent real-world CEO search, custom simulations were designed around the board’s requests to focus on current tensions facing the organization: handling competing interests, dealing with external pressures, and strengthening the company’s culture.
“With these role-plays, we can move beyond résumé comparisons and interview chemistry and observe leadership behavior,” says Divina Gamble, office managing partner and co-leader of the global nonprofit practice at Korn Ferry, noting that these custom simulations allow assessors to “see how candidates listen, influence others, and manage tension in high-pressure situations.” Experts say that’s often hard to uncover in a traditional interview.
To be sure, no simulation can guarantee a foolproof candidate selection. But experts say it increases the odds of a difficult process. It may also strengthen internal candidates’ skills for the future if they go through the tests and see what the job requires. And as Crandell says, “It helps take more of the guesswork out of these decisions.”
