Managing a Successful CEO Succession Process

When David Findlay was appointed president and chief executive officer at Lakeland Financial Corp. in 2014 to replace Michael Kubacki, it was the culmination of a long succession process that began in 2000 when he joined the Warsaw, Indiana-based bank as its chief financial officer. Kubacki knew Findlay, having worked with him previously at the Northern Trust Co. in Chicago, and he recruited him to Lakeland. The bank needed a CFO, but Kubacki had something else in mind as well. “He was a high-powered person and not only were we going to get a good CFO, we were going to...