Why Senior Executives are Walking Away from Corporate America.
I’ll never forget walking to the parking lot after another 12-hour day. My colleague—brilliant, accomplished, exhausted—stopped beside her car and asked a question that still haunts me: “But did we really help anyone today?”
We worked for one of the largest corporations in the world. We had impressive titles, substantial salaries, and benefits packages that made our families proud. On paper, we had won.
So why did it feel like we were suffocating?
The golden handcuffs weren’t just tight anymore. They were crushing.
The Moment Everything Changed
That suffocation? I know it intimately.
In 2009, I was traveling 80% of the time for a Fortune 500 company. I had two children—my daughter Paige was in 4th grade with complex needs, and my son Gibson was about to start kindergarten. One evening at dinner, I looked across the table and realized Gibson was about to embark on his next big adventure—and I wouldn’t be home when he got off the bus to hear about it. I wouldn’t be there to hug him if he needed it or give him a high five for being brave.
The weight of that realization was crushing.
What had happened was this: my employer had been going through downsizing for years. I started right before 9/11, and it went downhill after that. Full teams of people were being let go. Buildings were being shut down. Every time someone was let go from our team, I got their projects. After several years of that pattern, I had too many projects on my plate—hence the 80% travel schedule.
The economy was still struggling, so finding another job would have been difficult. And honestly? I was exhausted. I really needed something that would help bring back my zest for life, that spark of excitement. Even though I LOVED my job, it wasn’t helping people directly—not people I could see and touch and know I’d made a difference for.
I decided to start my own agency. I never looked back.
(Four months after I left, we discovered that Paige also had juvenile diabetes. I couldn’t have traveled while learning to navigate that steep learning curve. The timing of my decision literally blows my mind every time I think about it.)
Spoken Outloud
Here’s what nobody tells you about climbing the corporate ladder: the higher you go, the heavier the handcuffs become. That six-figure salary that once felt like freedom? Now it’s the anchor keeping you trapped in work that doesn’t matter. The executive title you worked decades to earn? It’s a gilded cage.
You’re making them wealthy. You’re building their empire. You’re executing their vision.
And every year, the weight gets heavier with toxic environments and backstabbing.
You’re not ungrateful. You’re awake.
The Exodus Is Real—And Accelerating
If you’re reading this and feeling a knot in your stomach, you’re not alone. According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, in 2024, 2,221 CEOs announced their departures—the highest total on record since tracking began in 2002. The trend is continuing: CEO turnover for January 2025 reached a new record with 222 CEOs stepping down, 14% higher than the same month last year.
Some executives are waiting out the uncertainty, hoping conditions will improve. But waiting just makes the golden handcuffs tighter.
Senior executives aren’t walking away because they can’t handle the work. They’re leaving because they finally realized they’re building the wrong thing.
You’ve Earned Every Skill You Have
You’ve spent 10, maybe even 20+ years perfecting your craft. You know how to build systems that scale. You understand what drives revenue. You can see three moves ahead in strategy. You’ve made countless other people successful.
But somewhere along the way, you stopped recognizing yourself in the mirror.
Since I left the corporate world in 2009 and started my own business growth agency, I still keep in contact with my past coworkers. We get together and I literally see dark circles under their eyes and the sadness on their faces when they talk about work or “who just got let go,” or the latest political gossip. Even typing this now, my stomach hurts to think about it. I can hardly sit there and listen, and I can’t participate except to say that I’m sorry that’s happening.
When I think about my company, I feel happy and my heart swells with pride. I literally am excited each day to “go to work.” Oh sure, it’s not easy work and I’ve had more than my share of bumps and bruises along the way and also have dark circles under my eyes sometimes—but you know what? I got these by working on my OWN business and building what I love.
The Suffocation Compounds Daily
The suffocation is real, and it compounds.
It starts small. A meeting that could’ve been an email. A strategic initiative you know will fail, but politics require you to smile and execute anyway. Watching someone take credit for your work. Again.
Then it compounds. The commute feels longer. Sunday nights are filled with dread. You calculate how many more years until retirement like a prison sentence. You catch yourself envying people who work for themselves, then quickly dismiss it because “you’ve invested too much to leave now.”
That investment? That’s exactly what’s suffocating you.
The Loyalty You Gave Wasn’t Returned
In my 30s, I worked alongside people in their 50s and early 60s who I deeply respected as mentors. They’d whisper about having “targets on their backs” because of their age, wondering if they should take the early retirement package. I was shocked—spending time trying to convince them that “no way is there a target on their back” and that the companies cherished them.
I grew up and lived life with rose-colored glasses, always thinking the best of people. People used to say that I was “effervescent” because I was born with the ability to always see the bright side.
Well, now I’m 59 and 100% realize what they were talking about. Ageism is REAL. I have experienced this several times over the last few years (we’ll save that for another blog article), but I can tell you that if you’re a CXO in your mid to late 40s or early 50s, I’d highly recommend that you start thinking about your next chapter. Especially since the world of AI is so unknown and it is changing executive roles in ways we’re only beginning to understand.
The data bears this out. According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the average age of departing CEOs in July 2025 was 70.3 years, compared to 56.2 years in the same month last year, suggesting a retirement wave is underway. But it’s not just natural retirement. Research shows that many boards took a ‘fail fast’ approach in 2023 and 2024—if a leader failed to show growth quickly, shareholders lost confidence.
The loyalty you gave for decades? It evaporated the moment the board decided you weren’t delivering fast enough. Or, your protectors retired so now you don’t have representation in the room of “newbies” who do not understand what you have done for the organization during your career. Sound familiar?
But Here’s the Truth They Don’t Want You to Know
Everything you’ve built for them, you can build for yourself.
The skills that made their company millions? Those belong to you. The strategic thinking that saved their projects? That’s yours to keep. The leadership that transformed their teams? You can deploy that in your own company.
You’re not starting over. You’re finally starting for yourself.
And you’re not alone in making this choice. According to a 2025 Guidant Financial report, 28% of entrepreneurs started their businesses due to a desire to be their own boss, while 22% were motivated by dissatisfaction with corporate life. That means half of all entrepreneurs are people just like you—people who realized the golden handcuffs were getting too tight.
What Senior Executives Are Building Next
When experienced executives leave corporate America, they’re not retiring to the golf course. They’re building:
- Independent Consulting Practices & Fractional Executive Roles: Leveraging decades of expertise on their own terms, with better work-life balance and higher hourly rates.
- Entrepreneurial Ventures: Research shows that in the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), 25% of unicorn founders have management consulting experience. Well-known companies founded by former executives include Airbnb, Kayak, DoorDash, Capital One, and Genpact.
- Portfolio Careers: Combining board positions, advisory work, and passion projects that actually align with their values.
- Mission-Driven Enterprises: Building businesses that solve real problems for people they can see—not just shareholders they’ll never meet.
The entrepreneurship economy is exploding. One in eight working-age people globally is engaged in entrepreneurial activity, representing nearly 665 million entrepreneurs by the end of 2024. And in the US, 5.2 million new business applications were filed in 2024, a 48.6% increase over 2019.
You don’t have to wonder if it’s possible. Millions of people are already doing it—and many of them started exactly where you are right now.
The Generational Impact You Could Make
Here’s something else to consider: As your kids age, entrepreneurship will become more and more prevalent. Kids are going to college less. The traditional path is crumbling.
If you could start your own business, bring back all of the passion in your soul, get your business profitable, and hand it to someone you love—that would be one of the most impactful generational changes you could make.
You’re building a dynasty either way. The question is: whose?
The Golden Handcuffs Were Never Meant to Set You Free
The golden handcuffs are getting tighter because they were never meant to set you free. They were designed to keep you exactly where you are—building someone else’s empire while your own vision gathers dust.
According to Korn Ferry’s analysis, CEOs could follow a playbook as recently as a few years ago that no longer exists—the job is significantly harder now. The same research notes that the environment of economic, political, and regulatory uncertainty, combined with rapid technological advancement and boards laser-focused on efficiency, is driving these exits.
The rules changed. The loyalty evaporated. The golden handcuffs got tighter.
But you have the key.
Your Answer Could Be Yes
My colleague’s question still echoes: “Did we really help anyone today?”
In that parking lot, surrounded by corporate campuses and six-figure salaries and impressive titles, the honest answer was often no.
Today, when I think about the families I’ve helped grow their businesses, the nonprofits I’ve supported in protecting vulnerable people, the mission-driven organizations I’ve equipped with strategies that actually work—my answer is different.
What if tomorrow, your answer could be yes?
The golden handcuffs are tighter than ever. But they’re still just handcuffs.
And you’ve always had the key.
