The Challenges of Retiring from a Excessive-Powered Job

A peep at seven general pitfalls — and the correct formulation to steer clear of them.

January 05, 2024

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Annually, thousands of executives retire from prolonged and successful company careers. However few are fascinating for the fling they’re about to embark on. Based on conversations with dozens of extremely revered outmoded chief executives, the authors identified seven general errors, ranging from not getting ready a ways ample in attain to pondering you would possibly maybe perhaps be capable of count to your present knowledgeable network to not realizing that behaviors that labored for you as an govt can work in opposition to you in retirement.

It used to be mid-summer 2020, and Ginni Rometty, the chairman and CEO of IBM, had six months final on her nearly 40-year profession with the firm. Her longtime mentor, the revered outmoded CEO of IBM, Lou Gerstner, had reached out to demand a gathering. “He desired to learn how my retirement planning used to be coming along. Truth be taught, I hadn’t begun to mediate about it. I was tranquil working the firm paunchy time and had not been able to dwelling apart the time,” Rometty advised us.

Rick Smith is an govt profession coach, serial entrepreneur, and co-founding father of ONYXan invitation-handiest community for present and outmoded CEOs of the enviornment’s most influential companies. He will be the founding father of World 50, the enviornment’s leading senior govt network and studying group, moreover G100 NGL, CNEXT, Swiftly Radius and Bionic. He is the Wall Road Journal handiest-selling author of three books on knowledgeable profession management, and a notable-stage TED speaker.
Maggie Wilderotter is a co-founding father of ONYXan invitation-handiest community for present and outmoded CEOs of the enviornment’s most influential companies. She will be a seasoned govt who used to be CEO of carrying out startup Wink Communications for 5 years and CEO of Fortune 500 firm Frontier Communications for 12 years. Maggie has served on 51 company boards in her profession, and he or she at listing sits on six company boards and is a senior advisor to seven companies. Maggie also owns a vineyard in California with her husband Jay.
Dennis Carey is vice president of KornFerry and co-founding father of ONYXan invitation-handiest community for present and outmoded CEOs of the enviornment’s most influential companies. He has recruited directors and CEOs for many of basically the most prestigious companies in The united states, served on loads of boards, taught company governance on the Wharton Faculty, and co-authored seven books on strategy, talent, and possibility. He based the CEO Academy and ThePrium, every of which will be handiest at faculty forums for company leaders. He has held put up-doctoral fellowships at Harvard and Princeton.