Healthcare CFO Turnover Highlights a Deepening Talent Gap

Healthcare CFO turnover reaccelerated in 2025.

While organizations moved faster to secure proven capability, more CFOs simultaneously stepped away from full-time executive roles, tightening the talent market and increasing the importance of internal succession readiness. This collision is reshaping the healthcare CFO market, underscoring that change is a persistent component of the sector’s leadership landscape.

As organizations navigate margin pressure, portfolio optimization and heightened risk and regulatory complexity, the CFO is increasingly central to value creation—shaping capital allocation, performance delivery and the investor narrative. As a result, boards are prioritizing leaders who can deliver quickly, with a growing preference for proven CFOs, with 75% of external CFO appointments over 2021-2025 having prior CFO experience.

However, the supply of experienced CFOs tightened: out of the 21 outgoing CFOs in healthcare in 2025, 16 moved into retirement or board roles. This creates a near-term talent gap precisely when the sector is navigating heightened capital allocation scrutiny, investor expectations for disciplined performance, and transformation agendas.

To better understand what’s underpinning these turnover trends, Russell Reynolds Associates analyzed CFO transitions across biopharma, medtech, healthcare services and healthtech organizations in 13 leading global public indexes from 2021 to 2025. Here’s what we learned.

Healthcare CFO turnover reached a five-year high

After a dip in 2023, CFO turnover rose in 2024 and climbed again in 2025, reaching a five-year high of 23% (Figure 1.) The pattern suggests that CFO turnover is becoming a permanent characteristic of healthcare leadership.

Figure 1: Trending healthcare CFO turnover: 2021–2025

_{Source: RRA analysis of 112 healthcare organizations in the S&P500, FTSE 100, FTSE 250, ASX 200, CAC 40, DAX 40, EuroNext 100, Hang Seng, Nikkei 225, NSE Nifty 50, S&P/TSX Composite, SMI and STI, 2021 to 2025}

Healthcare CFO appointments are rising faster than departures, suggesting potential strategy resets

In addition to higher turnover, CFO moves rose in 2024 and 2025 (Figure 2), increasing the need for organizations to manage leadership continuity during periods of change. As more CFO moves occur, boards may need to rely more heavily on interim CFO appointments—because transitions often straddle year-end (a CFO departs late in one year while the successor starts early the next). This reinforces the importance of having a clear interim plan as part of CFO succession planning, rather than treating it as a reactive back-up option.

Figure 2: Healthcare CFO appointments vs. departures: 2021–2025

_{Source: RRA analysis of 112 healthcare organizations in the S&P500, FTSE 100, FTSE 250, ASX 200, CAC 40, DAX 40, EuroNext 100, Hang Seng, Nikkei 225, NSE Nifty 50, S&P/TSX Composite, SMI and STI, 2021 to 2025}

Sustained CFO turnover is often associated with resets in financial strategy and capital allocation priorities, rising retirement rates, more CFOs becoming a CEO, and activist investors. In high-complexity healthcare environments, CFO transitions can be an early indicator of broader strategic change.

Many CFOs are moving into expanded positions

Among departing CFOs who did not retire or move to a board, the most common destination was another CFO role, with 44% moving laterally across the 2021-2025 period. For the remainder, 20% move into a division president/CEO role, 20% become a president/CEO, and 20% take different roles. Moves to division president/CEO typically reflect a shift into P&L ownership, often a deliberate step towards an enterprise CEO role.

This reinforces a key takeaway: the CFO continues to function as a pipeline into broader enterprise leadership, but the number of CFOs staying in full-time executive roles is shrinking.

Medtech turnover spiked in 2025, representing 50% of CFO appointments

Healthcare CFO appointments are generally concentrated in biopharma and medtech, but 2025 tilted notably toward medtech, with healthtech seeing no CFO turnover during the year (Figure 3). While all healthcare CFOs face complexity, medtech CFOs must manage a distinct mix of commercialization timing, regulatory clearance, manufacturing, supply-chain and cash-flow risk. Delays can quickly affect revenue milestones and investor confidence, increasing the premium on CFOs who can protect liquidity, manage forecasts and communicate a credible value-creation plan. In that climate, boards often prioritize CFOs proven in performance delivery, disciplined capital allocation and investor messaging.

Figure 3: Percentage of 2025 healthcare CFO appointments by subindustry

_{Source: RRA analysis of 112 healthcare organizations in the S&P500, FTSE 100, FTSE 250, ASX 200, CAC 40, DAX 40, EuroNext 100, Hang Seng, Nikkei 225, NSE Nifty 50, S&P/TSX Composite, SMI and STI, 2025}

“De-risking” the CFO appointment: External hiring is dominated by experienced CFOs at 75%, while internal promotions (25%) remain the engine for first-time CFOs

Healthcare boards opted for lower execution risk by prioritizing experienced CFOs when hiring externally, and using internal promotions as the primary pathway for first-time CFOs.

Some 75% of external healthcare CFO appointments from 2021-2025 held the role before. This likely reflects...

1. The heightened demand for immediately effective CFO leadership in a volatile environment, and 
2. Spikes in retirements before internal benches are ready for the next level.

…leading many boards to take a “safer” route with an experienced CFO.

That said, internal appointments remain a substantial portion of the healthcare CFO market, with 88% of internal CFO appointments stepping into the job for the first time.
Internal finance talent development is the key controllable lever to ensure a next generation of CFO talent.

For organizations looking for a finance leader who can drive new financial strategy, “lower execution risk” doesn’t just mean prior CFO experience. It can also mean predictability: internal successors tend to be known quantities with organizational context, trusted relationships, and a shorter credibility ramp with the board and leadership team.

Ultimately, a board’s risk appetite is dictated by their organization’s context.

Women hold less than a quarter of healthcare CFO appointments

Women CFOs remain rare in healthcare, with representation hovering around the low-20% range over the past five years (Figure 4), slightly lower than the average across all industries analyzed, of 23%. The pattern over the five-year period suggests progress is incremental, inconsistent, and not yet compounding.

Figure 4: Percentage of women healthcare CFO appointments: 2021–2025

_{Source: RRA analysis of 112 healthcare organizations in the S&P500, FTSE 100, FTSE 250, ASX 200, CAC 40, DAX 40, EuroNext 100, Hang Seng, Nikkei 225, NSE Nifty 50, S&P/TSX Composite, SMI and STI, 2021 to 2025}

In our review, nearly two-thirds of women CFO appointments were external versus internal promotions. This is a critical signal: internal succession pipelines are not consistently including and converting women finance leaders into CFOs.

CFO retirement rates are reshaping the talent market

From 2021-2025, 44% of outgoing CFOs retired or went to board roles. Retirement rates significantly increased over time, with 16 of the 21 departing CFO stepping out of the executive talent pool in 2025, compared to 3 of the 18 departures in 2021. This means that the operating market is losing experienced CFO talent faster than it’s being replenished.

Figure 5: Outgoing CFOs’ next steps: 2021–2025

_{Source: RRA analysis of 112 healthcare organizations in the S&P500, FTSE 100, FTSE 250, ASX 200, CAC 40, DAX 40, EuroNext 100, Hang Seng, Nikkei 225, NSE Nifty 50, S&P/TSX Composite, SMI and STI from 2021 to 2025}

How can healthcare organizations address changing CFO market dynamics?

With turnover at peak levels and a rising share of CFOs leaving executive roles, boards and executive teams should treat CFO succession as a standing strategic priority.

This requires them to:

Anticipate change earlier

Maintain an active view of CFO succession risk and readiness: expected timing, bench strength and transition scenarios, alongside a clear profile for what the organization needs today in a CFO and what it is likely to need three to five years from now with regard to strategy execution, capital allocation, transformation, risk/regulatory leadership and investor communication.

Build a CFO-readiness engine

Because internal appointments are the dominant pathway for first-time CFOs, organizations need to ensure that candidates get the experiences and develop the skills that create credible successors, including:

• Exposure to the Board
• Capital allocation 
• Investor narrative ownership 
• Restructuring/margin programs/operational transformation 
• Enterprise risk and regulatory fluency 
• M&A integration, portfolio rationalization and value-creation planning

Assume a thinner external pool

With the rise in retirements and moves to boards, the “ready now” CFO pool is smaller. Organizations should plan for:

• Broadening searches to adjacent sectors (regulated, complex, capital-intensive industries) 
• Earlier identification of potential internal candidates 
• Align CEO/board expectations with the real-world supply of experienced CFOs

Ensure a pathway for women

If the organization is not reliably converting women into the CFO seat, address the system:

• Earlier identification and sponsorship of high-potential women finance leaders (e.g., divisional CFOs, VPs of finance/FP&A, heads of finance transformation) 
• Rotational pathways into high-visibility roles (IR, business finance, transformation) 
• Use an “opt-out” approach to CFO succession: proactively include qualified women in CFO successor reviews and internal shortlists by default and require a clear reason to exclude them.

Authors

Jim McGlone leads the Russell Reynolds Associates’ Financial Officers Practice in the UK. He is based in London.
Ben Grover is a senior member of Russell Reynolds Associates’ Healthcare practice. He is based in Chicago.
David Krahe is a senior member of Russell Reynolds Associates’ Healthcare practice and leads the Global Medtech Practice. He is based in Dallas.
Aumeya Goswami is a member of the Russell Reynolds Associates’ Commercial Strategy & Insights Healthcare team. She is based in London.