By Even Hashikutuva
I don’t want to ruffle any feathers, but we need to talk about what’s really happening in Namibian boardrooms. Over the past five years, an estimated 15 to 25 percent of CEOs across Namibian companies, including publicly listed ones, have either resigned, quit, or been terminated. That’s nearly one in every four leaders gone. It’s a figure that echoes what the Namibia Securities Exchange (NSX) reports have quietly suggested, a pattern of leadership churn, governance instability, and a system that too often rewards connections over competence.
The NSX’s own 2022 Annual Report highlights a string of senior leadership changes, including multiple appointments and resignations at top levels across listed entities. The report also emphasizes the need for more transparent recruitment and stronger governance practices, subtle but telling indicators of a system under strain. While these reports stop short of naming every resignation or dismissal, they reinforce what’s becoming hard to ignore: Namibian companies are cycling through CEOs at a worrying pace.
I don’t want to mention any names out of respect for the individuals involved, but it’s getting out of hand. Every few months, another headline surfaces about a CEO stepping down, being suspended, or being quietly replaced. It’s become so routine that the public barely reacts anymore. Yet behind each resignation or dismissal lies another organisation struggling to regain its footing, another strategy delayed, and another team left directionless.
At this point, the government needs to step in and put the right systems in place, not to control businesses, but to ensure that governance structures and recruitment processes are genuinely transparent, independent, and accountable. Behind the statistics lies a deeper cultural issue. In Namibia, the appointment of senior leaders has, in many cases, become less about merit and more about networks. Who you know, who you play padel with, and whose number you have on speed dial often carries more weight than track record or capability. The country’s top jobs, especially in major corporates and parastatals, are frequently filled from a familiar pool, a rotation of the same names, the same faces, and the same inner circles. It’s a pattern that may appear harmless at first. After all, hiring someone you know can feel safer.
Familiarity breeds trust. But in the world of corporate governance, familiarity also breeds complacency. When board appointments and executive hires are driven by relationships rather than results, it creates a fragile leadership structure, one that’s ill-equipped to withstand the pressures of transformation, innovation, and accountability. Boards often go through the formalities of recruitment, advertisements, interviews, selection committees, but too often the process is little more than theatre. Decisions are made long before the shortlist is finalized. Someone’s name is already whispered in a boardroom corridor. Someone’s reputation precedes them at a golf game. The result is a process that appears structured but operates like an exclusive club. The consequences of this culture of “familiar hires” are far-reaching.
CEOs chosen for proximity rather than performance often find themselves out of their depth when real challenges arise. They struggle to make hard decisions or challenge entrenched interests because the people they must hold accountable are the same ones who secured their appointment. In other cases, they become scapegoats for systemic failures, removed when things go wrong because there was never real alignment to begin with. The churn rate is therefore not just a matter of bad luck; it’s structural. It’s a reflection of boards that prize loyalty over leadership, comfort over competence. And when one CEO exits, the cycle simply repeats. The board calls another “safe” name, another well-connected figure, another person who can fit into the social circle without friction. For companies listed on the NSX, this kind of instability has tangible costs.
Each CEO departure disrupts momentum, delays strategy, and erodes investor confidence. Projects stall as new leadership tries to reorient priorities. Staff morale dips as visions shift and reporting lines change. In a small economy like Namibia’s, where the pool of senior talent is limited and capital confidence is fragile, this revolving door leadership style can have an outsized impact. The NSX’s governance reports repeatedly underline the importance of independent oversight, transparent recruitment, and robust succession planning.
Yet these recommendations often remain unimplemented. Instead, the focus turns inward, to maintaining existing networks rather than expanding them. In this way, the system reinforces itself: familiar faces continue to lead familiar organisations, and turnover continues because the appointments were never built on enduring capability. This has broader social implications too. When leadership opportunities are distributed through relationships, talented professionals outside those networks are sidelined. Younger, emerging leaders with innovative thinking and global perspective find the doors to top roles closed.
The message it sends to the next generation is clear, your skill matters less than your connections. Over time, that kind of culture breeds apathy and disillusionment among the very people who could be driving the country forward. Leadership churn also exposes weaknesses in succession planning. Too many organisations in Namibia operate without a clear internal pipeline of talent ready to step up. When a CEO leaves abruptly, the board is forced into reactive decision-making, often defaulting to the “known” rather than the “best.” The NSX has, for years, encouraged companies to strengthen internal succession structures, but until recruitment is divorced from social ties, these recommendations will remain aspirational. Addressing this issue requires more than policy. It demands cultural change. Boards must commit to truly transparent, competitive, and independent hiring processes. Executive search firms should be empowered to bring forward diverse candidates, not just the usual shortlist.
Succession planning must be taken seriously, with a focus on developing high-potential talent across gender, industry, and background. Most importantly, companies need to separate governance from social convenience, leadership is not a favour to be handed out to friends, but a responsibility that demands scrutiny, independence, and integrity. The estimate that 15 to 25 percent of Namibian CEOs have left their roles in the past five years is not just a data point; it’s a signal. It tells us that leadership continuity, accountability, and trust are under strain. It suggests that our systems of appointment, whether in the public or private sector, are not producing resilient leaders but recycling familiar ones.
The NSX has already laid the groundwork for reform. Its annual reports consistently call for transparency, succession, and performance alignment. What remains is for boards and shareholders to act on those principles, to look beyond their networks and recognise that the strongest leaders are not always the most familiar ones. Namibia is rich with talent, but poor in trust when it comes to leadership selection. Until that changes, the boardrooms will keep revolving, the same circles will keep closing in, and the statistic, 15 to 25 percent, will keep repeating itself, year after year. It’s time to stop treating the CEO chair as a social prize and start treating it as what it truly is: a national responsibility.