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The simple question is whether the former public servant will be able to hold down a job in the private sector, which revolves around profit and promoting the narrow interests of shareholders, without signing up for its values.
The track record is not brilliant: Mark Britnell has become a leading exponent of private sector methods after defecting: it's hard to think of anything much that has been done by former NHS leading lights that demonstrates any continuing commitment to public services and their ethos.
The bigger question is whether while contemplating jumping ship some of those who intend to go might be tempted to line up an even fatter pay cheque for themselves by importing some of the private sector methods to the NHS, and of course taking all their contacts and knowledge with them.
My respect is reserved for those who stay at their post in the public sector and work to make it succeed, not those who take the grubby dollar from the private sector to help undermine the services they once worked to build.
At the end of the day we are still waiting for any evidence that the growing inroads of private providers is doing anything but undermine and weaken public sector provision, rip off taxpayers and generate a burgeoning, if largely impotent, army of "regulators" seeking to stop them doing what comes naturally, and make them deliver decent services to patients rather than line the pockets of shareholders.