The New Expatriates

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Vicki Ho, 43, was born in Taiwan, immigrated to the U.S. at 7 and attained her M.B.A. from the University of Chicago. Rising swiftly through the ranks at General Electric, she lobbied hard for an overseas assignment, finally landing one in 2005 as head of equipment-leasing for GE in China. But she learned quickly that being ethnically Chinese has some disadvantages for a U.S. executive. "Customers, particularly the older ones, thought nothing of lecturing me on how I speak," says Ho, who speaks conversational but not business Mandarin. On the other hand, she skipped some of the culture shock that slams many newly arrived expats. She is comfortable enough in her Shanghai skin to scold a woman who recently jumped a long queue at Ho's neighborhood bakery. Ho says her swift adaptation to Chinese culture, along with the very American networking skills she used to cultivate mentors and allies back at headquarters, helped her survive when GE abruptly shut her unit last year. Instead of hauling her home, the company immediately placed her atop another division in China, selling security equipment like airport baggage-screening machines. "You can get orphaned out here," she says. Instead, she raised revenue fivefold at her new unit.

The opportunities are so dazzling in China and India that many young workers--particularly those who studied the local language in school or, better yet, are native to the culture--are heading over without expat packages. Jasjit Mangat, 38, had a graduate degree in engineering from Cornell and business-consulting work under his belt when his wife Preet, 36, a cancer researcher, was offered a prestigious fellowship in India in 2003. He quit his job and went along. Though he was born and raised in New Delhi, "India was not part of my career before that," he says. He attracted several offers in Bangalore and joined Carlyle Group as an investment consultant before becoming a senior-level executive at OAT Systems, a Boston-based company that is building technology in India that identifies and tracks products. Mangat was offered a job at headquarters in 2006, and this time Preet went along (then fortuitously landed another fellowship, at Harvard). But both intend to spend more time in India--in part to raise their young daughter biculturally. Moreover, he says, his stint in his homeland now defines his career. "I can't imagine another job that won't involve India," he says.

Time abroad--especially in China and India--is becoming as "essential as an M.B.A. for a top executive's résumé," says Stacie Nevadomski Berdan, co-author with C. Perry Yeatman of Get Ahead by Going Abroad. The only problem is that the go-go growth and business style of emerging Asia can get into an executive's blood--so much so that he or she finds it hard to go back to headquarters. "I get a lot of résumés from executives just as they're being called back from an assignment," says Benjamin Zhai, head of China recruiting for Egon Zender International, a global executive-placement firm. He advises client companies to design specific new challenges for the returning expat, "or you will lose his motivation, if not him."

While companies may need them more than ever, expats agree that the eventual goal is to make their roles obsolete by developing local talent to take over the reins. That's no easy task. "We're trying to cram in 20 years of knowledge about procedures, communication, project-planning--all the things that make a business work," says Pete Lorenzen, 53, head of global IT support services for IBM in India. Still, helping his employer harness a surging new economy, he says, is "just about the most exciting thing I've done" in a long career. Who needs the foreigners' club?

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