Lessons from the Asian C-Suite: Building Global Talent and a Culture for Success By Michael Bekins
I
t is a big leap from being dominant in one’s own country to becoming a worldwide leader in a rapidly shifting and highly competitive global landscape. But this is exactly what Samsung,
LG, SK, Huawei, Haier, Lenovo and a host of other emerging Asian multinationals are striving to accomplish. The most successful of these aspiring multinationals are doing it ‘their way’ – with long-term vision, home-grown capabilities, Asian management practices, and an almost messianic sense of urgency and purpose. While all of these companies generally focus on growing their own talent, there is a small cadre of invited best-in-class talent who reside at the senior levels of each of these Asian corporate success stories who are assigned the task of helping to ‘globalize’ key elements of the business. Reporting to the CEOs, these foreign executives, by and large, don’t speak the local language and many have never worked in Korea or China. But their impact has been felt throughout the global enterprise and most of these Asian conglomerates expect to hire more foreign talent as CEOs recognize the importance of building global capabilities, beginning with the head office.