Why Fortune 500 boards are splitting the chair and CEO roles — again

NEW YORK — Combined chair-and-CEO was sold as accountability with a single throat to choke. Boards that have lived through an activist letter and a failed heir apparent are less sentimental. They want a chair who can fire the CEO without first firing themselves.

Companies moving first tend to be those that have already had a public fight. Prevention, in governance as in medicine, is easier to sell after the first hospitalization.

CEOs are not always pleased. A combined role is a status good. Investors who vote the split should be honest that they are buying a process, not a personality upgrade.