Ferrari lost two CEOs in two years — and had a successor ready for neither

In July 2018 Ferrari's board lost its chief executive weeks after he fell ill: Sergio Marchionne, who had run Ferrari for four years and Fiat Chrysler for fourteen, died. The emergency answer was Louis Camilleri — 63, a Ferrari board member since 2015, and the chief executive of Philip Morris International, who had previously run Kraft Foods and Altria. He was a steward chosen in days, not a successor chosen over years.

The stewardship worked longer than anyone expected. Under Camilleri, Ferrari's deliveries passed 10,000 cars a year for the first time, its Milan-listed shares hit a record €182.95 in November 2020, and the company began the two projects that would define its decade — the Purosangue SUV and its hybrid line. Then, on 10 December 2020, Camilleri retired with immediate effect, citing personal reasons, and also left the Philip Morris chair.

The second emergency exposed what the first had papered over: Ferrari still had no succession pipeline. Chairman John Elkann stepped in as acting chief executive while the board searched — the same man, in the same seat, solving the same problem twice. Shares fell on the news. A company that had lost one CEO to fate had failed to prepare for the ordinary departure of the next.

After Marchionne's death, a tobacco executive was rushed in; when he quit, the chairman had to run the company himself, costing two emergency successions.

The first succession was an emergency, and the board treated the fix — a respected chairman willing to step in — as if it were a plan.

Two and a half years later the same gap reopened: Camilleri left and no internal candidate existed, so the chairman ran the company again.

Succession planning is not for the current chief executive — it is for the day that executive disappears. A board caught twice has no contingency at all.