A leadership gap looms in Nordic and Benelux boardrooms

The Nordic countries and the Benelux bloc follow distinct corporate governance models.

In Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland, employees have the right to board representation once a company grows beyond a certain size—though the thresholds vary by country.

Despite their small size, these economies rank among the world’s most stable and have produced global powerhouses, including Novo Nordisk , Spotify , and Ericsson .

Large Dutch companies, meanwhile, legally separate management from oversight, requiring a non-executive supervisory board to hold the executive team accountable.

“These are high-trust cultures built on collaboration and consensus,” says Esha Mendiratta, an associate professor at Vlerick Business School in Belgium.

“Hierarchies stay flat, and major decisions wait until every stakeholder has weighed in.” If any region should feel secure in its choice of CEO, it’s these.

A new survey suggests otherwise.

Heidrick & Struggles’ Route to the Top report, based on a 2026 poll of 1,033 CEOs and directors worldwide found that nearly four in ten European respondents doubt their CEO’s strengths match what their company will need over the next two to three years.

In the Nordics and Benelux, that number jumps to half.

Tenure may be the culprit There are several reasons why these consensus-driven systems might be experiencing, or simply reporting, this heightened mismatch.

One possible explanation is how long chief executives stay in the job.

“CEOs in the Nordics and Benelux stay in their roles far longer than in other markets,” says Jenni Hibbert, who leads Heidrick & Struggles’ Europea and Africa business.

The average tenure for Belgian CEOs is nine years, the second longest in Europe, according to the firm’s data.

In Sweden and Norway it’s seven years, while Finnish CEOs have the shortest average tenure, at two and a half years.