The year 2019 saw a many upheavals in the leadership of large corporation. While in some companies, it was plain old succession, in many, the leaders fell from grace.

Here are five CEOs who made headlines in 2019:

Sunder Pichai

Sundar Pichai Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Earlier this month, Google CEO Sunder Pichai, 47, was named the new CEO of parent company Alphabet. He is replacing company co-founder Larry Page, who co-founded the company with Sergei Brin in 1998. “We’ve never been ones to hold on to management roles when we think there’s a better way to run the company,” Page and Brin said in a letter.

Jack Ma

In September, the beloved founder and CEO of Chinese eCommerce giant Alibaba relinquished his position and went into retirement at the age of 55. He was given perhaps the biggest farewell party for a company leader. It was held at a stadium, where thousands of company employees cheered Ma as he said goodbye, dressed as rockstar. The new Alibaba Group CEO is Daniel Zhang.

Adam Neumann

The charismatic 40-year-old founder-CEO of coworking giant WeWork had an unceremonious exit from the company in October after its bid to launch an IPO failed spectacularly due to deep investor scrutiny into its account books. The company lost billions in valuation. The main WeWork investor Softbank installed two new co-CEOs Sebastian Gunningham and Artie Minson and poured billions of dollars more into the company to save it from collapsing.

Kevin Burns

Founder of vaping startup Juul Labs had to step down in September after the US government banned e-cigarettes over concerns about their effects on the youth. He was replaced by KC Crosthwaite, who earlier worked at Altria, a tobacco marketing company.

Steve Easterbrook

Steve Easterbrook

The 52-year-old executive, who was credited with revitalising the global fast food chain and giving massive returns to investors, had to leave McDonald’s after he was found to have dated another employee, which was against company policy.