When Mark Cohen retired from his role as director of retail studies at Columbia Business School last month at the age of 75, he was confident he was far better at the job than when he started his career as a professor in 2006.
The reason: a few years ago, the former Sears CEO, sensing a rapidly widening “chronological gap” between himself and his students, enlisted the help of a young teaching assistant. She helped him turn his lecture notes into more engaging PowerPoint presentations, and gave him tips on how to adjust his “syntax and emphasis” to better resonate with a younger crowd.
Cohen said modernising his approach allowed him to walk away still feeling he was in his prime.
“At the end of the day, it’s all about performance, and performance characteristics need to step up, not down if someone gets older,” he said.
Age is never far from the fashion conversation, whether it’s the clothes sent down the runway or the makeup of the boardroom. In the US, the average fashion retail chief executive is 58.5 years old, less than a decade from the average retirement age of 65, according to Kirk Palmer Associates. Many prominent executives and creatives are older than that: LVMH chief Bernard Arnault is 75, Skechers CEO Robert Greenberg is 84, as is Ralph Lauren. Kohl’s newly appointed CEO, Tom Kingsbury, is 71. Prada chairman Patrizio Bertelli and co-creative director Miuccia Prada are 78 and 75, respectively. At 90, Giorgio Armani continues to lead the fashion house he founded in 1975.
Succession planning routinely comes up in media reports and gossip sessions about most of those companies. But the retirement conversation has become a nationwide obsession in the US in recent months, as Joe Biden, 81, faces off against Donald Trump, 78, for the presidency. The question of the right age to retire went into overdrive after Biden’s dismal debate performance in June, which was followed by a slew of headlines about whether his cognitive abilities had declined due to his advanced age.
In the US, federal law protects most rank-and-file employees from age-related retirement mandates, but there are exceptions for top executives and policymakers. Many companies require leaders to relinquish board seats or C-suite positions at a certain age or after a fixed term. These rules can bring in fresh perspectives while helping companies sidestep awkward (and potentially legally risky) discussions with leaders who show signs of physical or cognitive decline. Promising executives may also leave a company if a long-serving CEO shows no sign they’re willing to eventually pass the torch.
In fashion, enforcement of these measures is spotty at best, and for the industry’s titans, the answer to when they should retire is typically: whenever they want. When LVMH recently raised its maximum retirement age from 75 to 80, the investor Warren Buffett, 93, wrote Arnault a letter warning him he was making a mistake setting the limit so low.
That mentality trickles down, at least through the C-suite. In his 15 years of recruiting for fashion firms, Kyle Rudy, a senior partner at Kirk Palmer, said he’d never been tasked with replacing a chief executive due to a retirement mandate.
Relying on age alone as an indicator of capabilities is a mistake, experts say. It rests on assumptions that may or may not be correct — the idea that only young people are digitally savvy, or that senior employees are more mature are common ones. Instead of stereotyping based on birth date, companies should assess performance and skills, focusing on technical know-how where relevant and soft skills like communication, curiosity, and critical thinking.
“Age is not necessarily bad and not necessarily good.” said Lisa Renzi-Hammond, director of the Institute of Gerontology at the University of Georgia. “It depends entirely upon the circumstance in which you’re describing it.”
What We Mean By ‘Age’
When companies wade into thorny conversations about age, it’s often a proxy for qualities like wisdom, maturity and stamina, which can decline or improve as people get older but neither are guaranteed, Cohen said.
For chief executives, however, where their strategic vision is the priority, age can actually be seen as a benefit, said Renzi-Hammond.
“The CEO is … someone who is seeing the future with an eye to the past,” she said. “It’s highly likely that the person that you’re looking for … has some time under their belt, some experience, maybe some hindsight that they can apply to current problems.”
Top executives are also expected to bring “an energy” or a (physical and mental) vibrancy to the role and demonstrate that they’re open to learning and staying connected to current business trends, said Paula Reid, president of the executive search firm Reid & Co.
But, that, too, is “100 percent not about the age,” she said. “There are people who are 40 years old who can’t do that.”
There is one exception when it comes to the relevance of age: mental processing ability, said Renzi-Hammond. In most people, this does slow down with age. Generally, however, long-term strategy relies on different cognitive functions, which don’t decline at the same rate, she added.
“Is this CEO having to make split second decisions that require great processing speed?” she said. “Or is this CEO able to take time to examine trends and look at data … and make slower, more measured decisions?”
Navigating Succession
Not every CEO wants to hang on until the bitter end, Rudy pointed out. Many aim to retire before they turn 60. For instance, Deckers Brands CEO Dave Powers is set to retire on a high note next month at 58, leaving the company amidst a blockbuster earnings streak, and passing the baton to 61-year-old Stefano Caroti.
The best measure of when it’s time for an executive to move on is not age, but agility, said Rudy.
“If they’re having difficulty wrapping their minds around diversity, flexible work, sustainability, TikTok, AI — and they’re consistently pushing a rock uphill trying to get back to the way things were, it’s time,” he said.
Agility is what Cohen demonstrated when he updated his teaching style and tapped his assistant to help him connect with young students.
“It’s tough to do,” Cohen said. “But you’ve got to be willing to do it.”
It might be a more difficult call to make for a veteran executive with a sterling reputation and young rivals vying for their job. CEOs who cling to the corner office even as their effectiveness in the job wanes are often grappling with personal issues like finding purpose, worrying about perceived weaknesses in potential successors, or fearing that no one can do the job better than they can, Rudy said.
Maximum age mandates and other measures can help start the succession process. But a successful transition is often the product of that leader’s own self-reflection as much as a company’s rigorous and thoughtful planning, Cohen said.
“The right answer is for the board or lead investor to have a conversation with a CEO as they get older about succession, about their personal view of their interest and capacity and continuing to serve — and increasingly careful assessment of their performance,” he said.
