Leadership

Push Towards Non-U.S. Directors and Execs Continues

By Peter Galuszka

Updated on: July 22, 2008 / 1:35 PM EDT / MoneyWatch

The reach for non-U.S. director and executive talent continues. More companies based in the U.S or elsewhere are diversifying their C-suites and boardrooms with non-Americans and are looking increasingly to India and China for fresh blood.

That's the trend noted by BusinessWeek and America.gov.
Here are a few examples:

Sidney Taurel, a Moroccan-born Spaniard, is chairman and CEO of drug maker Eli Lilly.
India-born Indra Nooryi has been CEO and chairwoman of PepsiCo Inc. for nearly two years.
German software giant SAP has an American director, a Portugese head of sales, and will have a Frenchman born in Germany as its CEO next year. SAP is searching India and China for director candidates.
Among companies that have recruited directors from India and China are drug-maker Norvatis, consumer giant Procter & Gamble and equipment manufacturer John Deere.
Goldman Sachs has Indian corporate magnate Lakshmi Mittal as a director.

One reason for the outreach is obvious -- a majority of sales for some marquee-name firms are coming from beyond the U.S. Hewlett-Packard, for instance, gets 70 percent of its revenue from overseeas, IBM receives about 66 percent of revenue from abroad and Cisco Systems gets about 45 percent, BusinessWeek reports.

This is a natural development as the world's economy becomes more global but one wonders just how deep the talent pool, especially in places such as India and China, can be. There has been plenty of literature about the need to develop the managerial and technical skills of promising candidates from developing countries. Presumably, the demand for diversity will push such training initiatives forward.