Identifying talented academics worldwide using publication data has been proven to be successful with other performance measures based on citations and funding data in previous studies. We investigate the scientific mobility among academics as an additional performance measure. We reconstruct the mobility trajectory of potentially talented researchers throughout their scientific careers to study whether they have a different propensity to be mobile than a control group. Since the researchers’ gender may play an important role in scientific careers, we delve into gender differences. Our results indicate that potentially talented researchers have a higher propensity to be mobile – more so among male than female talented researchers. Women are overrepresented among non-mobile authors in the control group. The proposed method for identifying potentially talented individuals seems to select researchers who are more successful in their academic careers than the researchers in the control group. The results agree with the findings of previous studies based on citation and funding data. However, higher mobility is a privilege. Specific groups, such as those with fewer caring responsibilities and visa restrictions, could have better access to this privilege. Further research on the trade-off between higher mobility's potential advantages and disadvantages as a strategy to build a successful academic career and unequal access to mobility is necessary.