An increasing stream of research in strategy and finance dedicates attention to the study of corporate governance-especially its implications for firm performance. One of the ways to evaluate common practice and corporate governance structure is to verify the sensitivity of executive turnover to firm performance, which is the focus of this research. This analysis focuses on a sample of 176 industrial companies listed on the São Paulo Stock Exchange from 1997 up to 2001. There are three main results: (a) board composition is not significantly associated with the level of turnover; (b) profitability is significantly and negatively associated with turnover, indicating that better companies with a higher return on assets, as well as those with a higher return on equity, on average, replace fewer executives; (c) among the variables examined, the most important determinant of turnover is firm size.