Corporate News: Corner Office Turned Pressure Cooker
Jeffrey Kindler, who stepped down as Pfizer Inc.'s chief executive on Sunday, citing burnout, is the rare CEO to say that the job wore him out.</br></br>In fact, occupying the high-powered cocoon known as the corner office is more stressful than ever, thanks to a greater emphasis on globalization, stiffer competition, heightened government regulation and the weak economic recovery, say former CEOs, corporate directors and management experts.</br></br>Compared with four years ago, pressures on CEOs "are substantially different -- especially in certain industries," said Steve Reinemund, who retired in 2006 as PepsiCo Inc. CEO "It's still pretty tough out there," adds Mr. Reinemund, dean of Wake Forest University's business school.</br></br>As a result, many CEOs now look at the corporate throne "as a position with a limited term of office," said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a senior associate dean at Yale University's School of Management. "They rarely seek to stay a minute more than a dignified decade."</br></br>To cope, a few CEOs cut short their tenure. The head of a mid-sized mutual insurance company intended to retire in early 2013 after serving since 1999. But during a board succession-planning session three years ago, this chief announced he felt "frankly burned out" and wanted to leave within a year, said Beverly Behan, a New York corporate-governance consultant. "It was the most emotional board meeting I had ever been in," she added.