Though the average tenure of an S&P 500 CEO is 9.2 years, there are many examples of so-called “forever CEOs.” These are leaders who have sat at the top for decades, like Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett, who has been CEO for 54 years, or JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon, who has been CEO for nearly 20 years.
Determining when to step down and move on to a new role can be just as challenging for C-suite executives as for employees. Earlier this month, Ford Foundation president Darren Walker spoke to Fortune about his decision to leave his role at the end of 2025 and shared parting wisdom on the skills needed to run and scale a company.
Some 11 years after serving as president, Walker said candidly that his decision to leave the role was driven by diminishing excitement and exhilaration over the job.
“I feel I’ve started to plateau. Even though I could certainly have continued, I would have been coasting—and I’m not a coaster.”
Walker said he never wanted to get too comfortable in the head position and feels that he’s now fulfilled the goals he set for himself when he first assumed the role.
Under his leadership, the Foundation’s assets have grown from $11.1 billion in 2012 to $16.8 billion in 2023.
Among his first initiatives was investing $125 million to resolve the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history, in Detroit in 2013.
“The indicators for well-being for the city are very encouraging,” Walker said, and the city has seen a population increase of nearly 2,000 people between 2022 and 2023.
He also played a pivotal role, he said, in reconciling the Ford family, which had had limited communication with the Foundation since 1976. He reached out to the family shortly after his presidential tenure began, resulting in Henry Ford III, the great-grandson of the Foundation’s creator Edsel Ford, joining the board.
More recently, the Ford Foundation has invested in companies researching artificial intelligence, facial recognition, and data information and their potential for bias and discrimination.
Reflecting on his more than decade-long stint atop the Foundation, Warren said he prioritized authenticity, transparency, and vulnerability.
“If we want leaders to be courageous, it means that they may sometimes have to tell us things we don’t want to hear,” Walker said.
Leading with transparency also requires a willingness to let people make mistakes because lessons are born from them. One takeaway he gleaned from an early mistake was to follow his gut.
“I wanted us early on to have a program on rural America, and I didn’t fight hard enough. We ultimately have that program, but I got talked out of that initially. And I regret that decision,” he said.
When he became president, Walker said his primary goal was to make the U.S. a better country for Americans through his leadership.
As America swiftly enters the 2024 election cycle, with racial and social justice issues at the forefront, Walker said he’s still “unapologetically hopeful” and bullish about America because of his own story as a gay, Black man who went on to lead a storied institution.
“That does not mean that there are times when I don’t feel angry at America because I know this country can do better. And I know that the words of our founding fathers have yet to be fully realized, and that is the work that we must engage in.”
Businesses play a significant role in bringing that to fruition, added Walker, who sits on the boards of Fortune 500 companies like PepsiCo and Ralph Lauren.
“Diversity is not about wokeness or political correctness. Diversity is about the bottom line, and it's about excellence.” He pointed to his own board work as an example. "I am not actually interested in DEI as an ideology. I'm interested in it because I want the companies that I'm on the board of, for example, to win in the marketplace. And diversity will contribute to that.”
