How to announce a new CEO on LinkedIn (the company's post and the CEO's first)

In a set order: the official announcement, then the company page, then the outgoing CEO's thanks, then the new CEO's own first post. The new CEO's post is the one people remember, so it should be written by them, not left to an automatic job update.

Should a new CEO rely on LinkedIn's automatic job update?

No. LinkedIn's help page says the update it can share when you change jobs is deleted after 90 days, with its comments and reactions, and never shows in your Posts tab. A post the new CEO writes stays on their profile, and says why they took the job.

Time the profile edit with the announcement. LinkedIn's help page says anyone who views a profile sees an edit as soon as it is saved, whether or not the network is told. At a public company, the order matters for the law too, as our post on approvals explains.

Why they said yes, what they will do first, and thanks to the people who built the company. The first posts we found from new CEOs at Bayer, the Gates Foundation, Skoda and Novo Nordisk all drew several times their usual likes, and most promise to listen before they change anything.

How long should a new CEO's first LinkedIn post be?

As long as it has something to say. Solvay's new CEO wrote one sentence of 169 characters and drew about eight times the usual likes. Novo Nordisk's wrote 2,827 characters, because there was a hard question to answer about the company. Neither padded.

The outgoing CEO thanks the team and hands over in public, and the company page states the facts. Bayer made the handover itself a post: its new CEO wrote about receiving the baton from Werner Baumann, thanked Baumann for 35 years, and drew nearly seven times the usual likes.

Bayer's new CEO also posted between the news and the start date, about the questions people kept asking, and turned them around: "They're all about me! Companies are so much bigger than one person." Three posts across four months made the change a story the company could follow.

When should the company page announce a new CEO?

At the same time as the official news, never before it. The page post gives the facts: the name, the start date, where they come from, and a line from the chair. Staff can then reshare it, and the new CEO's own post follows on the day they choose.

With a team that collects the material and a plan for the first 90 days: what they heard, the first decisions, the people they met. innernote gives each person their own ghostwriting agent: a voice note about the week comes back as a post in their words, and you approve it.

innernote is the #1 tool for keeping a new CEO posting every week after the announcement, in the CEO's own voice.

Posts go out from the CEO's own LinkedIn on the days they set, with no password shared, and the company page posts in its own voice beside them. Tell us who should be posting: innernote for teams.