Here is a brief excerpt from an article written by Sarah Fister Gale for Talent Management magazine. As the year turns anew, she explains why talent leaders with their sights set on the C-suite should consider broadening their business pallet. To read the complete article, check out all the resources, and sign up for a free subscription to the TM and/or Chief Learning Officer magazines published by MedfiaTec, please click here.

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There’s a new talent leader in town.

A decade ago, strong leadership skills and a seasoned background in human resources were likely enough to land the top people management job.

But today’s top HR officers require a much broader set of skills and experiences, thanks to the continued complexity and globalization of business as well as the heightened premium placed on skilled talent.

As the economy grows more competitive and companies begin to view talent as a key differentiator, experts say talent executives are gaining more attention and authority in the C-suite. “Many of them are taking on more strategic roles, focusing on big-picture talent issues that impact business growth, rather than the more granular day-to-day HR activities,” said John Houston, national practice leader for global workforce analytics at Deloitte in Boston.

To meet such heightened expectations, experts say HR leaders need experience outside of talent management. Spending time in sales, marketing, finance or another department can help young HR leaders develop a more holistic perspective about how the business operates.

Specifically, developing broad business knowledge is a vital step for anyone who wants to join the C-suite, said Patrick Wright, founder of the Center for Executive Succession at the University of South Carolina, which completes an annual survey on executive trends.

The 2013 survey results show chief human resources officers, or CHROs, spend more time talking to their boards of directors about executive pay than any other issue — meaning they have to be well-versed in the financial dealings of the business. “Knowledge of financial operations is much more important today for CHROs,” Wright said. “You don’t necessarily need a finance degree, but you do need a working understanding of how the business makes money.”

Aspiring talent executives will also benefit from international experience, said Steve Miranda, managing director for the Center for Advanced HR Studies at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. This is especially the case as more and more companies enter new and emerging markets.

“CHROs have to be significantly more global than they were five or 10 years ago,” he said, noting that most Fortune200 companies look for CHRO candidates who have led teams abroad.

Ultimately, the emerging profile of a talent executive is one that shows the ability to take risks, learn new business concepts quickly and have the confidence and management know-how to navigate change.

The following are three example profiles of talent leaders that have taken an unconventional track to the top HR job.

[Here is the first example profile.]

Minding the Gaps

At the beginning of her career in the 1980s, Eva Sage-Gavin had already identified her dream job: the head of human resources for a large, global company.

So it might seem strange to many in the HR profession to learn that, in her late 20s, Sage-Gavin purposefully left a promising recruiting position at Xerox Corp. to take an entry-level technology sales associate job at the company’s Los Angeles office. “It was either the smartest or the luckiest decision I ever made,” she said.

The choice to temporarily leave HR for another business unit is a common theme among the emerging generation of top-level talent executives. For many, the opportunity to build knowledge in different part of the business is seen as a way to add gravitas as they try to propel a career in HR to the highest level.

For Sage-Gavin, the move into sales was designed as a calculated risk, one that she took to broaden her network, expand her business knowledge and take advantage of Xerox’s intensive sales training program. Through two years in sales, Sage-Gavin said she inherited a clearer understanding of how the business worked as well as what it’s like to have a commission-based compensation plan — insights that would later help in her rise as an HR executive.

“It was a pivotal point in my career that changed the way I thought about HR,” she said.

The move also allowed her the opportunity to build relationships with business leaders who would later recommend her for more senior-level positions. Sage-Gavin would go on to hold HR leadership roles at PepsiCo Inc., The Walt Disney Co. and Sun Microsystems Inc. before becoming chief people officer at multinational clothing retailer Gap Inc. in 2003, where she stayed for 11 years. Today, Sage-Gavin is vice chairwoman of Aspen Institute’s Skills for America’s Future Advisory Board in San Francisco.

“Early in your career is the time to take risks,” Sage-Gavin said. “Even if you fail, you can learn from those experiences and apply them in your next role.”

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Here is a direct link to the complete article.

Sarah Fister Gale is a freelance journalist with more than 20 years experience writing about a wide range of topics, including parenting issues, workforce and talent management strategies, sustainability, clean energy, corporate learning, the pharmaceutical industry, food safety, and more. To read more of her articles, please click here.