After victoriously envisioning, creating, funding and launching a company, forces conspire to keep founders in that same leadership position forever, even as the role of leading the company evolves and changes from creator to builder to sustainer.

Who follows the founder? The timing and choosing of this leader can be a tricky and often a highly emotional process. And it’s one that will have significant impact on the business world over the next two years as economic conditions unleash a wave of founder successions.

Who are Founders as leaders? Discover key insights on this question from our engagement with dozens of early-stage founders.

Eugene Kim, Egon Zehnder's office leader in Seoul, is a regular contributor to The Korea Herald’s Management in Korea column. The following articles were originally published in The Korea Herald’s Management in Korea and are presented here with its permission.

In recent years oil and gas companies have applied innovative technologies to make discoveries of vast new hydrocarbon resources. If only it were that easy for them to deal with a dire challenge above ground: identifying and training a new generation of qualified and prepared executives who are ready and willing to lead oil and gas companies at this pivotal time in the industry’s history.

In the digital age, companies in every industry must unleash a new wave of innovation – or be disrupted by aggressive new competitors. Digital is transforming everything from consumer behavior to employee engagement to the management of cities and infrastructure.

As private equity firms look to maximize value from their investments, it is critical to ensure that portfolio company management teams have the right capabilities to execute against their investment theses. Though in many cases the underlying premise will lie in backing an existing management team, it is increasingly common for private equity firms to bring in a new CFO early in the lifespan of an investment.

The Chief of Staff role is perhaps the trickiest hire for a chief executive to make.

Big businesses are often slow to adapt and innovate, while start-ups struggle to build teams and systems to scale up their businesses. How can firms break this mould? By learning from one another, writes Egon Zehnder’s Catherine Zhu in the Career Doctors section of the South China Morning Post.

In 2013, Carol SingletonSlade, Steve Goodman, Trent Aulbaugh and Roger Aguirre of Egon Zehnder’s Global Energy Practice warned of the dire need for identifying and training a new generation of qualified and prepared executives who are ready and willing to lead oil and gas companies. Four years later, as Chevron’s chief executive John Watson is set to step down, his likely replacement is a representation of this “new leadership for a changing oil world.”