Media companies saw maximum CEO churn in 2019: Report

Chief executive officers of media companies outnumbered peers from other industries in a list of 3000 top executives who changed jobs last year according to a study released belatedly by headhunting firm Sapphire Human Solutions .
The study observed that 595 senior executives in the media industry alone had changed jobs and attributed the hiring frenzy that the sector witnessed to a positive business environment for media companies resulting from increased demand for content from consumers and friendly foreign investment rules.

The legal services industry was a close second witnessing 427 senior executive movements, as per the study.

A Sapphire executive attributed the delayed release of the report to the Covid 19 pandemic.

“Media sector is going through an interesting time with all kinds of product offerings vying for consumers mindshare and wallet share. New technologies, new products, huge content demand and internet penetration that is ever increasing are some of the drivers of growth in this industry,” said Amit Das, director of human resources at BCCL, who was quoted in the study.

BCCL is the publisher of The Economic Times

The spurt in legal services hiring was attributed to de-mergers and emergence of newer law firms as well as international law firms foraying into India.

Sapphire’s study also claims to have found that female executives move less frequently across companies at senior roles. It noted that for every five top management executives that changed jobs in the previous year, only one was female.

The highest number of job changes at the top management level took place in November last year when 440 executives took on new jobs, according to the study.

Banking and financial services, technology companies and manufacturing companies were among the other major industries that saw significant senior executive movements with 1187 top executives changing jobs in these industries.

“The purpose of this comprehensive study of the movement of top management talent across industries is to succinctly showcase the underlying trends, thereby enhancing the decision making process for the hiring of such executives”, said Ankit Bansal, founder and chief executive officer, Sapphire Human Solutions.