How does an executive like Adel Zakaria give John Deere global competitive advantage? Increasingly, large multinationals are finding it necessary to invest in the global devel¬ opment of their workforces, particularly their top leadership. Adel Zakaria is a case in point. Adel, an Egyptian-born naturalized American, is an example of the new breed of manager for global firms like John Deere. He's extremely well qualified technically— an industrial engineer with postgraduate work and several degrees. But best of all, he fits the multicultural, multilingual, multifunctional criteria of the global executive. He's a manager who can do more than one job, in more than one language, in more than one country.

Zakaria is very aware of the process that put him at the head of the largest plant in the world, the Waterloo Works, owned by the second oldest company in the US, John Deere, the diversified manufacturer of farm equipment and appliances, founded in 1837.

The John Deere Company sees its foreign-born employees as an integral part of its worldwide organization. They're implanted and integrated into the global workforce. They broaden the company's perspective, providing a global mindset and enabling it to see beyond the dominant cultures, wherever they have operations. The company is convinced that this helps it to maintain a competitive advantage as the diversity of its customer base continues to grow, worldwide.

Zakaria was born into a minority status in Egypt. A Coptic Christian in the over¬ whelmingly Muslim country, he has been dealing with issues of prejudice and persecu¬ tion since grade school and has evolved an effective worldview. "I came to the US in 1968 when I was 19 years old. I had a mechanical engineering degree from Ain Shams (Eye of the Sun) University in Cairo, and a desire to pursue my graduate studies." Zakaria became an early example of today's "gold-collar worker," highly skilled and highly sought-after employees with advanced degrees from other countries who've done research in technical fields.