The NYtimes discusses the war for talent with venture capitalists, the McArthur Foundation, big pharma, A&R folks, and.... Gensler...

AT Gensler, the architectural firm, getting the right people is less about wowing audiences and more about understanding the firm’s future needs. Right now international expansion is a top priority. In recent years, business outside the United States has grown at least 30 percent a year and now constitutes a quarter of Gensler’s overall business.

So, this summer, Gensler is bringing a new twist to its internship program. A major goal involves hiring students from United States universities who grew up in Brazil, Argentina, India, China or the Mideast and might eventually want to return to their native countries later in their careers. The hope, says Diane Hoskins, one of three executive directors running Gensler, is that these interns can eventually play important roles in helping Gensler build its overseas offices.

Historically, Gensler has expanded in a gradual, impromptu way, opening most of its 31 offices when major clients want work done in new locations. But Gensler’s new effort to nurture transnational architects reflects a more deliberate matching of future talent and future strategy, by clustering gifted people together.

This approach pays homage to one of the firm’s most successful hires. In 1991, an American-trained Chinese immigrant, Jun Xia, joined Gensler’s office in Denver and thrived there, winning awards for a regional airport job. He had planned to settle in the United States, but after a visit to Shanghai in 1998, he urged his bosses to open an office there, so Gensler could play an important part in China’s building boom. The firm did so.

Mr. Xia is now Gensler’s design director in Shanghai. Last year, he and his team won an architectural mandate to create Shanghai Tower, a 2,074-foot colossus that is expected to be China’s tallest building when completed in 2014. Finding young architects with the potential to do something similar for Gensler has become a strategic priority, Ms. Hoskins says.