The company is a global manufacturer employing people worldwide. Although it emphasizes diversity as part of its employer brand, only a lower double-digit percentage of leadership positions are held by women, a share below industry benchmarks and declining. Female leaders left the organization more than male leaders in 2024, while leadership headcount is limited, so losses cannot easily be offset by new hires. Existing exit data hints at reasons but does not explain the underlying drivers behind this imbalance.

The thesis follows a mixed-methods design combining motivation and retention theories, including Self-Determination Theory and Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory. All female leaders at the company were invited to an online survey covering career satisfaction, motivation, well-being, and aspirations. Half of the female leaders responded. Nine survey respondents then took part in semi-structured follow-up interviews, allowing quantitative patterns to be explored and contextualized in greater depth.

Autonomy, control over how, when, and where work happens, is the strongest reason female leaders stay, ahead of pay or job title, and it also makes heavy workloads more manageable. Two structural gaps stand out as the clearest retention risks: unclear career progression and a workload that has stayed high since a recent event. Neither gap is gender-specific; both affect leaders across the company. However, female leaders are concentrated in a few functions that are easier to leave for external opportunities, so these company-wide problems end up pushing disproportionately more women out. A narrower set of risks is genuinely gender- and motherhood-specific, surfacing as everyday friction rather than isolated incidents, and needs its own response. The thesis recommends the company treat workload and career-path transparency as structural, company-wide priorities, since fixing them will especially help retain female leaders. Targeted measures, including structured sponsorship and more inclusive leadership behavior, are recommended to address the risks that remain specifically gender-related.