On Becoming a Truly Global Player: The Global Talent Management Challenge at Trimo ROBERT KASE The sun was just setting behind the Burj Al Arab when Sonja Klopi, competencies development manager at Trimo, was taking off from Dubai airport. Admiring the intense golden color of the glowing desert below her, she was still thinking about the events of the last couple of days in Trimos subsidiary in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and about a phone call she received earlier today from the company headquarters in Trebnje, Slovenia. The worlds city of Dubai was a venue to an important step in Trimos continuous internationalization process. Just hours before heading back home, Sonja had finalized all the arrangements and formal details to hire Senaj Avdi as the first third-country national (TCN) to ever head a subsidiary in Trimos international network. The appointment of the new managing director of the Trimos UAE subsidiary was a result of an intense recruiting and selection process that lasted for several months and came to closure in the last three days during the final stage of interviews. One evening after a hard day of interviewing while Sonja was still weighing the pros and cons of hiring a TCN, she was interrupted by a phone call from Marta Strmec, director of HR and general affairs at Trimo. Marta informed her that Trimo managed to get a big new business in India and that Tatjana Fink, Trimos general manager, is planning a meeting on Monday to discuss this further. She asked her to think about the situation and prepare a short proposal how to staff operations in India where Trimo has not yet been present. Sonja had about eight more hours of flying and a weekend before the meeting, so enough time to draft a couple of initial ideas and suggestions. However, she was not really sure that she could prepare a good proposal by Monday. There were simply too many questions and challenges that were related to the global talent management at Trimo that surfaced during the last couple of days in the UAE. What can an ambitious MNC from a small country do to gain recognition and successfully compete on the global expatriate market? What makes a company such as Trimo attractive to foreign expatriates? Can a small MNC retain its expatriates? (Is there a difference if they are TCNs?) Does HR composition and organization of Trimos international operations reflect its ambitions? Can it be