By HUGH WILEY /PRESIDENT, TIME LATIN AMERICA

or the past five weeks, TIME Latin America has boasted the presence of not one but two stellar staff members named Elizabeth ("Libby") Williams. We don't think it's a trend, but it is an impressive coincidence. One Libby is our Mexico City bureau manager, who helps bureau chief Tim Padgett cover the region. The new Libby has joined our New York staff, where she is the director of consumer marketing.

Libby II has a long history as an expert at handling TIME's circulation around the world. She started out 10 years ago in Amsterdam as the direct-mail manager for TIME's European edition. Four years later, she headed back in the direction of the U.S. but took the long way around, stopping for a three-month stint at TIME's office in Sydney, Australia. Then she spent a year globe-trotting, from a safari in Africa to a trek in Nepal and a summer in the south of France. She added another brief stint in circulation at TIME's sister publication in Hong Kong, ASIAWEEK.

Now that Libby has joined our team, she will still be taking in the sights and making frequent trips to Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Chile, where she will be checking out newsstands and meeting with subscription agents. In fact, she just got back from her first fact-finding trip to Mexico. "The circulation department is not just the people in New York," she explains. "We have a lot of important partners in the field--newsstand reps, subscription agents and our customer-service operations." Customer service, Williams says, is "a real priority." Aiding her are, among others, Aston Wright, the department's finance manager, and Argentine-born Moira Triveri, market manager for new business. Helping in the field is John Hogan, director of newsstand sales for Mexico and Central America. Their dedication has paid off: TIME's Latin American circulation has grown nearly 10% in the past year and, at 104,000, has hit a 15-year high.

If Libby II has any questions about the region that her experts can't answer, she can, of course, always ask that other Libby Williams down in Mexico City. "Oh, we've met," says the new Libby, smiling. "She's been forwarding me a lot of e-mails."