As companies expand their international operations, smart women who are prepared to pursue opportunities overseas can dramatically accelerate their careers, enjoying high-profile projects, bigger promotions, and impressive financial rewards.

Get Ahead by Going Abroad is the go-to resource that reveals how women, single or married, can leverage this trend to showcase their skills and move up quickly on their own terms. Written by two women who did so with huge success, the book is packed with candid, instructive anecdotes and examples from their own and others' experiences, and step-by-step guidance for securing and succeeding in an international position. Yeatman and Berdan show how women at every level can benefit from an overseas posting: young professionals seeking to break out from the pack, mid-career women interested in new challenges with increased responsibility, or senior executives in pursuit of positions in executive management. Get Ahead by Going Abroad helps you get further, faster—and have fun along the way. It gives you the strategies to land the assignment, thrive in the job, and enjoy the lifestyle abroad.

Fast-tracking Your Career

I was a twenty-five-year-old account executive making $25,000 a year when I accepted my first job overseas. By the time I returned to the United States ten years later, I was a vice president in one of the world's largest consumer products companies, making more than twentyfold what I had when I left. More importantly, those years were the most exciting of my life, both personally and professionally: consulting for several of the world's most respected companies... having an office off Red Square while working on behalf of the Russian ministry of privatization... touring Bangkok with Margaret Thatcher. Weekends spent scuba diving in the Maldives, romantically strolling hand in hand through the streets of Prague and Paris, or shopping in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. I worked hard, played hard, learned a lot, and had fun. None of it would've happened if I'd stayed in the United States.

—Perry, coauthor and Kraft Foods, Inc.

Going overseas can fast-track your career and expand your personal horizons beyond your wildest dreams. If you love adventure, thrive on taking risks and operating outside your comfort zone, and are fed up with the inequality of the old boys' network, going global could be your ticket to the fast track.

As thousands of women (and men) know, working and living in another country can expand your professional options manifold. International experience differentiates you from your peers. Doors open for you because companies need professionals who can act locally while thinking globally.

Women in the know are on to this trend. More and more women are being asked to take on international dimensions in their existing jobs or are considering new jobs with more global dimensions—often at much earlier stages in their careers than in the past. International roles, once offered primarily to men, are now increasingly being offered to women. There are many reasons, but the most groundbreaking is the growing acceptance that a woman's natural style—her feminine traits—can actually lead to greater success in cross-cultural situations. A woman's style endows her with an awareness of and ability to adapt to others' styles. It enables her to build teams in a nonthreatening "we're all in this together" fashion. As women we tend to overcommunicate, which can actually be good in situations that are ambiguous and with -people who are different from us. We persist diplomatically in difficult circumstances and are not afraid to use the right mix of emotional intelligence, intellectual might, and feminine intuition.

Companies are acknowledging this new fact of business by sending more women abroad than ever before. Don't misunderstand us; those gender stereotypes that have limited a woman's ability to be considered for an overseas assignment still exist. But they are slowly but surely diminishing as more women succeed in international assignments from Bangkok to Buenos Aires, São Paulo to Stockholm, Calcutta to Cairo. If you are looking for a ticket out of middle management, join our new band of leaders: women we call the new globetrotters because of the successful international experiences they have under their belts (and in their pocketbooks).

Making It Real: Let the Adventure Begin

Throughout this book you'll meet dozens of women who have catapulted their careers by going overseas. We surveyed more than two hundred women who have spent significant time overseas, either as expatriates or in headquarters-based roles with significant international responsibility. We designed the survey in consultation with a seasoned research expert. Invitations to participate were sent to approximately 100...

C. Perry Yeatman is Senior Vice President for International Corporate Affairs and Global Issues Management, Kraft Foods, where she is one of the top 50 executives and a key advisor to the CEO of the world's second-largest food and beverage company. After stints in Singapore, Moscow, and London, she returned to the U.S., where by age 36 she had become a senior manager in a Fortune 100 company and increased her annual compensation to more than $500,000. She says, "I never would have gotten there had I not gone overseas." She lives with her family in Wilmette, IL.