Recently I was presenting to a group of senior HR individuals in Europe. As a closing I decided to give them a challenge. I asked “Who among you is the future CEO of your organization?” I was received with a little grin on the face of many, a grin of disbelief.

I repeated this question in front of several hundred people at the Taleo Users conference, and asked, “Why would you be a good candidate for the CEO role?”

With those repeated cold responses, I decided to inquire a bit more. Indeed, according to a survey done by DBM, less than 2% of CEOs came from HR. Xerox, with its CEO Anne Mulcahy, is one of the companies in which the CEO was VP of HR, but she started in sales.

This is even more of a dilemma when we look at what executives are saying:
1. 95% of CFOs say that human capital management was in the top 3 most important things for the success of their company (and 44% say it is #1).
2. 78% of board members say that they should spend more time on talent and skills; even ahead of their second concern - strategy & risk at 76%.

So why are only 2% of CEOs coming from what is seen as the most important department of the organization? I have only conjectures, and would like your feedback. It could be that HR people don’t speak numbers; that HR people are not focused on business enough?

But maybe we are confusing two things: HR is not talent and skills, HR is not talent management; HR is first and foremost benefits, payroll, administration and lastly talent, (and sometime learning). This difference is an important one, and we now see more and more of a split in the software applications organizations are using. One big application for payroll and benefits (Oracle or SAP) and another to manage talent and skills – the emerging industry we are in.

Consider the aerospace customer that decided to consolidate all its 172 software applications into 2: Taleo and Peoplesoft/Oracle. Or our Fortune 100 customer that made its Talent Management department report to the COO and not to HR.

Maybe CEOs should not come from HR after all!