Top Executives Find It Pays to Spend Time in Asia

Kasper Rorsted, CEO of German company Henkel (above), just spent nearly six weeks working in Asia, an unusually long time away from headquarters for a CEO.  His trip spanned 9 countries and involved nearly 100 meetings.  The company makes 14 percent of its sales and 20 percent of its profits in Asia Pacific, and nearly 20 percent of its employees are based in the region with that number poised to grow to one-third in the coming years.  Many companies are now considering moving headquarters to Asia, or splitting their headquarters to include a "co-HQ" in Asia.  Once Cisco executive puts it this way: after changes in trade, manufacturing, development and research, "the next phase of globalization will be the decentralization of headquarters functions."

Top Executives Find It Pays to Spend Time in Asia - NYTimes.com: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Business school grads flocking to Asia for jobs - BusinessWeek.com- msnbc.com

This is James Crawford. He's about to graduate Columbia with his MBA. Instead of heading to Wall Street or Silicon Valley or into a private equity firm, he's heading to Shanghai, as more and more MBA graduates are doing these days.
Business school grads flocking to Asia for jobs - BusinessWeek.com- msnbc.com

Asia Roaring Out of Recession

Europe remains in a "funk," the U.S. looks uncertain, and Asia is roaring back with double digit growth. In the meantime, consumers in emerging markets combined spent more on consumer goods than U.S. consumers did. It all adds up to a very different global economic picture than 20 years ago. 20 years ago, the U.S. consumer was king, and all the world's exporters paid the most attention to the U.S. which gave Americans unprecedented power to dictate consumer tastes in fashion and electronics. The tide has shifted away from America, and along with that shift, the U.S. influence on a global scale will wane as well.