Articles & Papers

Turnover at the Top: What the Wave of CEO Exits Means for Mexico’s Consumer Sector

CEO turnover across Mexico’s consumer sector is revealing how boards are redefining leadership for a more volatile, digital, and cost-pressured market, with expert insights from Boyden Mexico’s Farid Alcazar.

2025 was a tumultuous year for Mexico’s consumer sector, marked by the departure of CEOs from at least 10 firms, including retail giants and major players such as Walmart, FEMSA, Heineken, and Grupo Bimbo. 

The pattern of rising turnover and briefer tenures suggests these changes are not isolated events, but signs of deeper shifts in the sector that are likely to continue and potentially accelerate in 2026 and beyond. 

The high CEO turnover seen in Mexico last year is part of a trend affecting the highest-ranking executives in consumer and retail worldwide. Amid mounting market pressures, boards have taken a harder line, intensifying expectations and demanding faster results. Given the scale and pace of turnover in Mexico, examining how this trend is unfolding there offers valuable insights into evolving leadership demands across the sector—and the pressures driving them. Some common threads stand out: 

 

Broader Trends: Turnover Signifies Transformation 

Modern leadership in Mexico isn’t just about steady hands. It’s about having the capability to transform the business while continuing to deliver results day-to-day—driving change without losing operational momentum.

Farid Alcazar
Managing Partner, Mexico

The surge in CEO turnover is more than a cyclical or performance-based reshuffling of leadership; it reflects deeper structural shifts that are now reshaping Mexico’s consumer sector. The pressures behind last year’s exits indicate a market that is becoming more cautious, constrained, and complex, demanding stronger operational and digital capabilities. 

Shoppers are choosing lower-priced options, considering value more carefully, and making more purchases online. El Economista reports that retail foot traffic fell by 3.5 percent in early 2025, underscoring the mounting challenge of sustaining customer engagement. Holiday spending reinforced the trend, with many consumers opting to buy online. The shift toward more budget-conscious choices and the growing popularity of e-commerce are likely to endure. 

Technology is also becoming essential to protecting profitability. Mexico’s e-commerce market is expanding at one of the fastest rates globally, with growth expected to outpace the U.S. this year. Intensifying digital competition raises the bar for omnichannel strategies, data-driven decision-making, and AI-enabled efficiency. Boards are increasingly aware that digital execution is no longer a differentiator; it is a prerequisite for resilience. 

Supply chain shifts and nearshoring are also reshaping operational demands in the consumer sector. As companies relocate production and reconfigure logistics networks, they need leaders who pair strong operational experience with strategic vision. Inflation, cost volatility, and supply chain pressures are prompting boards to favor CEOs who can deliver stability while steering through ongoing change. 

At the same time, compliance and ESG requirements are rising. Companies are navigating stricter regulations, such as those on processed foods and sugary drinks, as well as increased oversight and higher expectations from investors, consumers, and advocacy groups. These pressures are becoming defining features of Mexico’s consumer landscape, requiring leaders who can manage complexity while maintaining credibility with a wide range of stakeholders. 

These trends help explain why many consumer companies reshuffled their leadership teams in 2025 and why that turnover should be read as an early signal of what the sector will require from executive leadership in 2026 and beyond. 

 

A Future-Proof CEO Profile Emerges 

Fundamental changes in Mexico’s consumer sector are reshaping board expectations and reinforcing the need for a different kind of CEO—one equipped to balance mounting pressures, maintain performance, and navigate a shifting consumer landscape with a strategic yet pragmatic vision. 

With profitability under pressure and operations becoming more complex, boards are looking for CEOs who can run tighter organizations, make disciplined commercial decisions, and meet the digital demands of an increasingly omnichannel market. In practice, that means leaders who can manage costs, use data and AI to guide decisions, and turn digital investment into measurable performance gains. 

“Modern leadership in Mexico isn’t just about steady hands,” says Farid Alcazar, Managing Partner at Boyden Mexico. “It’s about having the capability to transform the business while continuing to deliver results day-to-day—driving change without losing operational momentum.” 

Tightening regulatory scrutiny and evolving ESG expectations are also reshaping the CEO profile. Boards are favoring leaders who can manage risk, build trust, and reinforce credibility across diverse stakeholder groups. As companies navigate faster cycles of change, they increasingly need CEOs who can provide stability while still driving transformation. 

“Boards aren’t just looking for growth anymore,” Farid adds. “They’re looking for leaders who can lead by example, embrace technology, drive change at pace, and still deliver tangible results within increasingly compressed timeframes.” 

Taken together, these expectations point to a new CEO mandate for 2026—one defined by tighter execution, faster transformation, and the ability to steer organizations through volatility without losing long-term strategic direction. 

As boards recalibrate their expectations and redefine leadership for a more complex era, the CEO turnover of 2025 may be seen not as a disruption but as a realignment in response to a fundamentally changed consumer sector. Performance remains paramount, but sustaining it now depends on leaders’ ability to reconcile the necessity of stability with the inevitability of transformation. 

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