How to Ensure Your Next CEO is Always in the Room

Historic leadership factories like General Electric (GE), Procter & Gamble, and Ford embody this better than most. True corporate training grounds cultivate talent and chart years-long development pathways. More mobility. More exposure. Programs that teach flexibility and encourage risk. I came up at GE, where I rotated through different programs and took on new roles over two decades. Thanks to that experience, I spend a lot of time thinking about how to make sure each employee at Twilio sees possibility in their careers. How to invest in roles, development, and training to make that possibility real. I believe the next generation of executives is always in the room. It’s especially important now, as AI disruption and economic unpredictability are driving record CEO turnover at public companies. Boards and leadership teams are tapping operational leaders for the top job, often from outside their ranks. They’re choosing steady hands to steward organizations through unknown waters. The thing is, there is always something transforming the business world. Twenty-six years ago it was the internet, then mobile, then the cloud. Today, it’s AI. Change is constant: The ability to adapt is the thing that matters. I want my teams to benefit from a new kind of leadership factory that draws on the legacy of those storied training programs, and cultivates the most important skills for CEO’s today: agility and adaptability. So, how do organizations ensure that successors built to lead through change are already in the building? CREATE THE PERMISSION STRUCTURE FOR THE CORNER OFFICE While on stage at our company’s annual sales kickoff, I planted the idea that the next CEO is in the room, saying “Somewhere in the audience sits a member of our future C-suite. They just don’t know it yet.” I’ve benefited from this exact idea. My predecessor bet big on me. He routinely gave me the chance to grow be