Good day, CharterFolk.
Today we’re pleased to share a co-authored Contributor Column from Veronica Conforme and Mollie Mitchell.
We provide background about the authors below.
Veronica Conforme is the co-founder and CEO of Greenhouse E3. She previously served as CEO of UP Education Network in Boston and now partners with charter school boards and executive teams nationwide to strengthen leadership pipelines, support CEO transitions, and develop the next generation of charter school leaders.
Mollie Mitchell is the founder and president of The K12 Search Group, where she advises charter school boards on executive searches and leadership transitions across the country. In 2027, The K12 Search Group will celebrate its 20th anniversary.
Beyond “Internal or External”: Three Paths Through a CEO Transition
The biggest mistake charter boards make during a CEO transition isn’t choosing the wrong leader. It’s waiting for the CEO to announce a departure before thinking seriously about succession.
Too many boards still operate under a 10 to 15-year CEO tenure model. That model was built around founders, a disproportionately long-tenured cohort that is steadily shrinking. The sector is producing fewer new founders, and most leadership transitions now involve replacing second- and third-generation CEOs. Based on numerous searches conducted by The K12 Search Group, charter school CEOs typically serve for 5 to 7 years.
A broader shift is accelerating that change. Career reinvention, evolving life priorities, and movement outside the sector or into funding and consulting roles are increasingly common.
We have spent decades working on both sides of these transitions. Veronica Conforme leads Greenhouse E3, which helps charter organizations develop CEO-ready talent internally. Mollie Mitchell, founder of The K12 Search Group, advises boards and conducts searches for exceptional leaders. Between us, we have seen dozens of transitions succeed and many fail.
After years of working alongside charter school boards, we have reached the same conclusion:
The conditions for a successful leadership transition are created long before a CEO leaves.
Succession planning is not merely good practice; it is one of a board’s most important responsibilities. Charter School Growth Fund (CSGF) reported 15 CEO transitions in its portfolio since 2023. Just as boards provide financial and strategic stewardship, they must also ensure leadership continuity. Strong boards consistently ask themselves: “Are we intentionally building an organization capable of producing outstanding leaders?” Organizations that invest in developing executive talent are far better positioned to weather inevitable leadership changes and are more likely to retain their high performers. Succession planning creates options. Executive search expands options. Together, they allow boards to make thoughtful decisions rather than urgent ones.
For years, boards have assumed that a CEO transition requires choosing between an internal promotion and a national search. But we believe there are three viable paths.
Promote from Within
Organizations that have intentionally invested in succession planning over many years may not need an executive search firm. When the board has confidence in an internal leader whose readiness has been demonstrated over time, promoting from within can provide continuity and maintain momentum.
Internal promotion should never be viewed as the “easy way out.” When done well, it reflects years of thoughtful leadership development, increasingly challenging assignments, executive coaching, meaningful board exposure, and ongoing assessment of readiness to lead the organization.
Just ask Marcia Aaron, Partner at CSGF, who demonstrated that successful CEO transitions begin years before the handoff. Marcia knew the external talent pool was likely a talent “puddle” and began developing her successor in partnership with the board several years before she left her position as CEO at KIPP SoCal. Her successor just reached the five-year mark in the role, leading the organization through a period of enrollment growth and accelerated academic recovery post-COVID.
Independently Assess Internal Candidate(s)
Boards with one or more credible internal successors still need a rigorous process. The work begins by gathering input from key stakeholders, defining the capabilities the organization will need in its next chapter, assessing the candidate(s) against those requirements, and benchmarking that individual’s readiness against the current external talent pool.
Years ago, a charter school board came to Mollie prepared to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a national search. They had one question:
“We think we have the right internal candidate—but how do we know?”
Mollie had recently completed a similar search in that market. And after assessing the candidate against the organization’s needs, she could confidently recommend that the board hire the internal candidate.
“I can’t believe you’re trying to talk us out of paying you for a full search,” the board chair said.
The board voted to promote the internal candidate, who led the organization for the next eight years. The board saved significant resources, but more importantly, they gained confidence by following a disciplined process rather than relying on assumptions. And the best news? They had a new CEO within weeks, not months.
The process felt more like a thorough final interview for the expected successor than a comparison with external candidates, which might be seen by the candidate as a lack of confidence and suggest that the years of investment and development were still not enough.
Conduct a National Search
There are instances when needing to conduct a search isn’t a failure of succession planning. Sometimes an organization’s next chapter genuinely requires capabilities that do not yet exist within the organization.
When there is no viable internal successor, or when an organization requires transformational leadership, a professionally led executive search is often the best path forward. Strong governance means recognizing when continuity is the right answer and when transformation is the right answer.
Many boards facing a CEO transition may still want to conduct a full search—even if they believe they have strong internal candidates. Boards in this position should expect a 4-6-month engagement costing upwards of $75,000. For guidance in selecting a search firm, please read our recent article linked here.
Keep in mind that there is a risk in running a search where multiple internal candidates compete against each other: the candidates who don’t get the job are likely to leave the organization.
Faced with a CEO transition, every board should ask three questions:
- Do we have a credible internal successor?
- Has that person’s readiness been independently assessed against our future needs and the external market?
- Does our next chapter require capabilities that do not currently exist inside the organization?
The strongest leadership transitions aren’t defined by whether a board hires internally or externally. They’re defined by whether the board intentionally built leadership capacity, selected a process that matched the organization’s needs, and earned its stakeholders’ trust along the way.
You can’t predict the future, but you can prepare for it.
Ready to get started? The CSGF recently published Board Basics, a set of practical tools for charter board governance, and this guide to CEO Succession Planning includes resources for getting started or going deeper on this important work.