A narrower map
Executives with school-age children now discount destinations rapidly on schooling and healthcare grounds, and the effect has concentrated mobility into a smaller group of markets. That does not make other markets unfillable; it changes where the candidate pool has to be built from.
Diaspora as a primary pool
Across our African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian mandates, the strongest appointments increasingly come from senior leaders returning after a period in another market. They carry international operating standards and local context simultaneously, and their relocation calculus is different because the destination is not unfamiliar.
Structures that work
Split-location arrangements with a defined minimum in-market presence, staged relocation across an academic year, and explicit partner-employment support are now routine components of a viable senior offer. They should appear in the brief rather than being invented under time pressure at offer stage.