Aedhmar Hynes, 34, is president of public relations consultancy for Text 100 North America, the company's North American arm. Based in the San Francisco office, Hynes serves as global account director for the agency's account with Xerox Corp. With 24 offices around the world, Text 100 offers its employees the chance to participate in a secondment program, which allows them to spend short terms -- generally two weeks -- at another office. In addition, employees may also transfer to offices in other countries, as Hynes did. Prior to moving to the US to set up the San Francisco office in 1997, Hynes, who is Irish, worked for seven years in the company's London office.

Monster.com: What motivated your move to the US?

Aedhmar Hynes: When I was a student in Ireland, I actually lived in New York for a year and waitressed. I loved the US, and that was always in my past. I was working in London with Text 100 when we began to open the US business, I said to my boss, "Just factor me in. I don't know when, but at some point in the future I'm going to want to live in the States." I was spending a lot of time going back and forth because my clients were predominantly in the US, and I really enjoyed working for US clients.

Mc: What are the logistics of Text 100's secondment program?

AH: We have different levels of people within the organization. Entry-level would be an account coordinator, and then we have account executive. Once you get to the account manager level, which is when you're managing a team of people and a business, you're entitled to a domestic secondment. Then, when you get to account director level, you are entitled to an international secondment. General managers do international secondments annually as well.

Mc: How does Text 100 decide where someone will go?

AH: It is usually dependent on the person's knowledge, or his or her need to build knowledge, of a specific area. For example, here in the San Francisco office, a general manager recently did a secondment to Sydney because there has been quite a bit of demand in this office for an understanding of the Asia-Pacific market. He started to buddy up with the general manager in Sydney and spend a lot of time talking to him. In that particular case, we did a swap for two weeks; the general manager from Sydney came here. We try to create as much similarity and synergy in the way we run our business worldwide. Someone might be wearing a sari or some sort of national dress, but the motivation, the kind of people we hire, what we're trying to do and the culture within the organization are very similar.

Mc: Has anyone decided to transfer somewhere following a secondment?

AH: Yes, they have. All of our jobs are posted internally. We are currently in a state of wanting to hire in every single office, and we try our best not to poach from one office to another. We have a whole policy on this. If somebody decides it's time to go and work in Paris, say, then they inform human resources and there's a series of steps we take them through. There's a lot of time for preparation and thinking it through. When we relocate people around the world, we require they stay a minimum of two years. Almost all of our offices have people who have moved from other countries. Here I have a Spanish, a German, three British and I'm Irish. We've all been people who, at some point in our careers, asked to move to another office.

Mc: Where do Americans tend to go? What are the most popular spots for secondments?

AH: The Americans aren't as inclined to go, but there is a lot of interest in coming to the States. I think that's because there is a recognition within the company that the US has become the business's major growth engine, and there's the opportunity to work with very big brand names. The market's just bigger -- everything in America is bigger. Also, within our company, English is the common language, so I guess the ease of fitting into the US is high. There's a fascination with America too. People feel if they come here they're going to learn so much.