Become the Internal Candidate the Board Already Picked
Four insiders were named to the top role in two weeks. Here's what each of them had already done before anyone announced it.
You're a director, a VP, or already in the C-suite, and the role you want is one level up inside your own company. The plan most people carry is simple: when the vacancy opens, make your case. Here's the problem with that plan. By the time the vacancy is official, the internal candidate who gets it has usually been chosen already. The announcement is the last step in the process, not the first.
Between October 27 and November 3, four public companies named insiders to their top finance or chief executive roles. Read the announcements closely and the same story appears four times.
Four promotions, one pattern
Pfizer's board unanimously appointed Cecile Guegan as Chief Financial Officer effective November 1. She had been interim CFO since August 16, and before that she was responsible for the financial operations and reporting of Pfizer's entire biopharmaceutical business. Her CEO's words: she "knows our company and industry deeply."
Sysco named Brandon Sewell Executive Vice President and CFO, effective November 1. He had been interim CFO since March, and before that he ran finance for Sysco's U.S. business, the company's largest operating segment. During his interim stretch, the company delivered strong results, launched a technology modernization, and financed an acquisition. His CEO said he "performed at a high level" and had earned the board's confidence.
Genworth announced that Jerome Upton, its CFO since March 2023 and a 28-year veteran of the company, will become President and CEO on January 1, 2027. The company's filing notes he already served as interim President and CEO from July 7 to September 2 this year, while the CEO was on a leave of absence. The board chair cited his "integral role in shaping our strategy."
Equity LifeStyle Properties named Patrick Waite CEO effective January 1, 2027. He has been Chief Operating Officer since January 2015 and President since April 2025. The company's filing describes the change as part of a "multi-year succession plan."
What did the four have in common? Each had already done the job in substance before the title arrived. Three had held the position on an interim basis. One had run the largest piece of the business for over a decade. All four had a working relationship with the board long before the vacancy. On the day of the announcement, none of them was being tested. The test was over.
Do internal candidates usually get the job?
More often than you might think. Spencer Stuart's most recent snapshot of S&P 500 leadership teams found that 59 percent of C-suite leaders were promoted from inside their company. At the very top, the number is higher: 76 percent of CEOs and 80 percent of chief operating officers came up from within.
Here's the part of that figure that should concern you. It doesn't say the internal candidate wins. It says an insider wins: the one already doing the work when the decision is made. If that isn't you, your tenure doesn't protect you. The company can promote from within and still pass you over.
The decision is made before the vacancy
In twenty years as an executive recruiter, I saw this from the other side of the table. A search often confirms a decision rather than makes one. When a company already has someone doing the job, the search is a check on the board's judgment, not a contest. Outside candidates are measured against someone with a track record in that exact role, at that exact company, with those exact directors watching.
That's the cost of waiting for the opening. You'll be competing against someone who has evidence, and you'll be offering a promise.
The two moves between you and the role
Look at where you sit today and where you want to be, and there are two moves in between.
The first move is doing the job before it's yours. Guegan, Sewell, and Upton each stepped into the role on an interim basis. Sewell and Waite each ran the company's largest operating piece. In every case, the board got to watch the person make real decisions with real consequences before committing. The outcome you're after is the same: a record in the position, or in the work that defines the position, that exists before the vacancy does.
The second move is making that record visible to the people who decide. Your manager's good opinion is not the decision. The board, the CEO, and the governance committee are, and most capable executives are invisible to them. You can run a function flawlessly for five years and still be someone the board has never seen in action. When a chair says an insider has "deep knowledge" of the company, it's because the chair has personally watched that knowledge at work. The outcome you need is directors who can describe what you did without being briefed.
Most executives make neither move on purpose. They make the first by accident when an interim need arises, and they never make the second at all. That's the gap I close with clients!
What this looks like in practice
I've watched this play out with my own clients. Jennifer "Jenny" Will, MHL, FACHE, first came to me for a professional bio to support a national board appointment with Women in Health Care. She was an Associate Vice President at Samaritan Health Services at the time, already promoted once inside the company, from Director of Operations to AVP within her first year.
She came back the following year with a specific target: the Chief Operating Officer role inside Samaritan. Her record was an AVP's record, and she needed it to read like a COO's to the people who would decide. I rewrote her resume and LinkedIn profile for that role, and about ten weeks later she was offered the COO role at Samaritan's North Lincoln hospital. She set her own start date so she could relocate and finish what she'd committed to as AVP, and the company agreed. In her recommendation of me, she called my work "an absolute game-changer." When the role opened, she already held the record.
Book a complimentary meeting with me, and I'll review where you sit today against the position you want, and tell you what the people who decide can and can't yet see.
Choose a time that works best for you.
For HR and business leaders
If you're on the other side of this, building the bench, the four announcements hold a lesson too. A bench is a list of names. A successor is someone the board has watched do the job. The difference is an interim assignment or a stretch P&L, given on purpose, before the role is vacant.
Equity LifeStyle Properties ran a multi-year plan and named a CEO who had been President and COO for years. Sysco handed an interim assignment to a twelve-year finance leader and got a permanent CFO with a record the board had already reviewed. Skip this step, and you get a search that starts from zero and the quiet exit of the insider you passed over.
Take the interim role
Executives ask me whether they should accept an interim role, and my answer is yes. Interim means temporary, and it can stay temporary. It can also become the permanent role, as happened in three of these four cases in the space of two weeks. Even when it doesn't, you've done the job, and that record goes with you to the next company that needs it done.
The internal candidate the board already picked didn't wait for the vacancy. Don't wait for yours.
Choose a time that works best for you.
Bobbiette Swanson is the founder of Soar Career Services, which she launched in 2016 after twenty years as an award-winning Certified Senior Executive Recruiter and nearly three decades in careers and hiring. She writes executive resumes, optimizes LinkedIn profiles, and coaches senior professionals through career transitions, drawing on best practices across multiple industries. She leads the writing and strategy for every client engagement.
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