Federico Grayeb
Executive Retention & Leadership Advisor
Understanding why globally mobile executives choose to stay.
My research explores the decisions of senior leaders who build their careers across countries and cultures.
It challenges conventional assumptions about retention and reveals what truly matters to exceptional leaders.
THE STUDY
A three-year mixed-methods research program.
The study combined in-depth qualitative interviews with a large-scale quantitative analysis.
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38
In-depth interviews
with senior executives across countries
Countries
represented in the quantitative study
258
Executives surveyed in global pharmaceutical and medtech companies*
3
Years of rigorous research, analysis, and validation
(*) While the study centered on pharmaceutical and medtech leaders, the patterns — career growth and leadership quality outweighing compensation — mirror findings across other knowledge-intensive sectors.
KEY FINDINGS
What truly drives the decision to stay.
The research challenges many widely held beliefs about executive retention.
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Career growth is the strongest driver.
The perception of a credible future, continued learning, and expanding scope is what most influences senior executives to stay.
Leadership quality shapes whether career opportunities remain credible
Leaders who create trust, provide direction, recognize international experience, and support development have a powerful influence on executives' decisions to stay.
Off-the-job factors mattered far less than expected.
Family, location, and community are important—but typically as enablers of the decision, not as primary drivers.
Compensation and location were less influential than continued growth, role fit, and leadership-related factors.
They contribute, but rarely determine the decision to stay.
These patterns hold across regions, roles, and demographics.
Gender, age, and national origin do not significantly change the factors that influence staying.
These findings suggest that executive retention should be understood less as a question of keeping executives from leaving and more as creating organizational conditions that make staying the better career decision.
These ideas also inform my advisory work with organizations.