I feel internal succession planning is better than going for a head hunt outside. The reason being employees within the organization who qualify for these kind of posts would have already been with the company for a pretty long time proving their loyalty to the organization, would have a deep knowledge and experience about that industry and the working of that particular company and most important of all would know about the quality and way to engage optimally the resource of utmost importance that is the human resource..the best example would be that of Cyrus Mistry in case of the TATAs.