Illinois Tool Works: CEO Santi Was Excellent, but We Like the Succession Plan

Illinois Tool Works announced the departure of CEO Scott Santi, effective Jan. 1, 2024. Santi will remain as board chair until March 1. The firm will certainly miss Santi, but we like the choice of Christopher O’Herlihy, and we’re not surprised by the announcement. More importantly, from a shareholder standpoint, ITW’s enterprise and 80/20 strategy is institutionalized, meaning its operating model isn't based on one person, nor is it governed by top-down edicts. Quite the contrary, the businesses must apply the playbook, but how they choose to do so is done on a bottoms-up basis.