Why Top U.S. Executives Are Taking Jobs in Europe Now
For a long time, ambitious people moved in one direction: from Europe to Silicon Valley.
That’s changing. The numbers are small but moving fast
Executive search firm Riviera Partners placed a record 7% of its European hires from U.S. candidates last year.
At EQT, one of Europe’s biggest tech investors, 8% of C-suite hires across its portfolio in the past two years came from America. A few years ago it was almost none.
These aren’t people who got pushed out. They chose to go.
What’s pulling them over
Maryanne Caughey left the Bay Area to run the People Team at Lovable, a fast-growing Swedish AI startup. She was direct about it: “It’s the same – if not better – than a company I would have worked for in the U.S.”
That used to be a hard sell. Recruiters spent years convincing American executives that European companies were serious. Now the pitch is easier because the companies genuinely are.
The CEO of recruitment firm Erevena says: “Every hub in Europe has a handful of companies that are scaled enough, ambitious enough and well-funded enough that they can actually attract top-tier talent.”
Policy instability at home is doing some of the pushing.
In the first half of 2025 alone, more than $22 billion in clean energy projects were cancelled or delayed in the United States, eliminating 16,500 jobs.
Federal research grants were frozen across dozens of universities. A new $100,000 fee was imposed on companies sponsoring H-1B visa applicants. This made hiring top international engineers in European offices far more attractive.
Ireland saw 179 foreign investment approvals in H1 2025, up 37% from the year before. Companies running multi-year AI hiring plans or R&D programs need to know the rules won’t reverse overnight.
In Europe, they’re more confident of that.
Who makes the move
Not every American executive is a candidate. Riviera’s research is clear: executives who’ve never lived outside the U.S. tend to stay put.
Family situations matter too – a teenager in high school is a real obstacle.
The executives who do move usually have studied or worked in Europe before. They’ve already built wealth from earlier roles, so compensation matters less.
What they want now is impact and a different pace.
“Weekends are a bit more sacrosanct,” said one executive who relocated. “You don’t work less, but there’s a different rhythm.”
Not permanent for most
The typical arrangement isn’t a life relocation. Many executives tie the move to a three-to-five year equity vesting period, with a return to the U.S. in mind.
But some stay. And recruiters say the pipeline keeps growing.
Microsoft has committed $30 billion to its UK operations through 2028. Google announced a €5 billion investment in Belgium’s AI and cloud infrastructure. OpenAI and Anthropic have both expanded European operations in the past year.