Chief executives and the itch to quit

By Andrew Callus

LONDON, May 16 (Reuters) - On approaching his 60th birthdaythis year, long-serving Tullow Oil boss Aidan Heaveytold staff he felt "like two 30 year-olds".

A handful of recent shock departures by 50-something chiefexecutives at European blue chip companies - none of them underany obvious pressure to quit - suggest some of his peers eitherlack that vigour, or want to channel it elsewhere.

Peter Voser is giving up one of the world's most challengingCEO roles at Royal Dutch/Shell next year, before his55th birthday, in pursuit of a "lifestyle change".

Swiss engineering group ABB's 55-year old boss Joe Hogan is also going, for "private reasons". Pierre-OlivierBeckers, 53, is walking out on Belgian retailer Delhaize, and Paul Walsh, 57, is waving goodbye to drinksmultinational Diageo.

All four are about average European CEO age.

While the rising financial rewards of running a modernmultinational have been well publicised, executive recruiterssay the pressures of the job have also been ratcheted up inrecent years, and not just because of the tough economic times.

"The reality is it's gruelling. It's really tough, and therecomes a point where you don't want to do it any more," said IanButcher, who headhunts board-level and senior executives for MWMConsulting.

"The quarterly reporting, the governance, the regulatoryaspects, it just becomes very wearing - the level of scrutiny,the pace at which things are moving, the short-term nature ofhow people look at any given situation. Even over the past fiveyears these things have made CEO a tougher position to hold, andthe travel that people have to undertake in these jobs - it'sjust something they run out of steam on."

Some recent early retirees, while still well short oftraditional retirement age, also got to the top spot early.

"They're still in their early fifties, with energy and adesire to do something, but they want to do something different,something quite significantly different sometimes," saysButcher.

Voser fits that bill. He has no plans to collect well-paidchairmanships and non-executive directorships, as many ex-CEOshave done in the past. Former Tesco chief Terry Leahyhas also resisted that gravy train since he left two years ago.

As for the early starters, executive search industryprofessionals point at people like Andrew Witty, the CEO ofGlaxoSmithKline, who took on the job aged 44 in 2008 andwould have to stay in harness for another decade to reach 60 inthe role.

Blue-chip bosses as young as Witty are still rare, but overa quarter of Europe's current crop have less than two years inthe job, and more than half have less than four, according todata from executive search specialists BoardEx.

MEDIAN CEO AGE IS 55 YEARS

The BoardEx data, collected for Reuters from 238 companiesin the main stock indexes of Germany, Britain, France, Spain,Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark, puts the median CEOage at 55, and the median tenure at four years. Only 16 percentof the group have held on for 10 years and more.

The longest serving of them is Martin Gilbert of the Britishfund Aberdeen Asset Management. Though younger, at 57,Gilbert pips the 28.3-year tenure of Tullow's double thirtyyear-old Heavey, with 29.8 years at the helm.

There are 17 top European CEOs who have been in the job forless than six months, and the youngest of the 225 in the groupfor whom ages were available is Vitaly Nesis, 37, who runsPolymetal International, the London-listed Russianprecious metals miner.

While the recent spate of quitters are looking for somethingelse to do, there are still some who appear to want nothing but.

In the BoardEx group there are four over 70, and the oldestby eight years is Albert Frere, CEO of Group Bruxelles Lambert.

Perhaps some linger on for fear that the pension pot isstill a little light. Frere will have put such qualms behind himlong ago. At 87, he is Belgium's richest man.