§01Senior people do not leave loudly. Of the 247 senior placements we have closed since founding, the median tenure of the candidate at their previous employer at the point of resignation was 4.2 years. The median window during which the candidate was actively considering a move was 11 weeks. The window during which they were genuinely persuadable — open to being interrupted by the right opportunity — was, by their own self-report, closer to four.

§02This is the operational reality that most retention frameworks fail to address. The candidate has not become disengaged because their work is uninteresting; they have become disengaged because their growth has become predictable. By the time the disengagement is visible in survey data, the candidate has been in the persuadable window for two months.

§03The interventions that work, in our experience, share a common feature: they require senior leadership time. A scoped sabbatical, a meaningful re-mandate (not a re-titling), or a board-adjacent project routinely outperform compensation adjustments at the senior level. The candidates we place often turned down a higher counter-offer to take a more interesting remit.

§04For boards reading this who are concerned about a specific senior leader: the test is simple. Can you name, without consulting anyone, the next concrete step in their growth that is uniquely available at your organisation? If you cannot, they are persuadable. The eleven-week window is closing.