International experience is no longer enough. “If you want to be a CEO, you have to go through Asia,” says Kalpana Denzel, Executive Search and Assessment Consultant with Russell Reynolds Associates in Singapore. East Asia and Pacific region generated 40 percent of the world’s economic growth in 2013, according to the World Bank, and Asia will continue to drive global growth for decades to come.

That means that future business leaders will need to know how to navigate the myriad countries, cultures and politics of this diverse — and often opaque — market.

Getting that experience, though, isn’t easy, especially for people coming from the west. To better understanding these challenges, Chazen Global Insights talked five experts on career development who appeared at Columbia Business School's Pan-Asia Reunion in 2014; the panel was organized by Regina Resnick, associate dean of the School's Career Management Center . The panel included: Kalpana Denzel, Executive Search and Assessment Consultant with Russell Reynolds Associates in Singapore; Michelle Wang Jingji, Head, Strategic Alliances and Partnership, Human Capital Leadership Institute; Natalie Chan, Associate Director, APAC, INSEAD’s Career Development Centre in Singapore; Mohan Belani, CEO and Co-Founder, E27; and Tim Gibson-Tullberg, Managing Director and Global Head of the Private Wealth Management Practice for Sheffield Haworth, based in Singapore. Here’s what they told us.

It’s not homogenous: “People often underestimate the complexity and the diversity in Asia, not just across different markets but also within a single market. You may find different cultures and different dialects being spoken in the same city. The acute economic growth throughout the region adds another layer of complexity because new industries, new competitors and new immigrants are coming and going almost daily.’ — Kalpana Denzel

It’s not for the faint of heart: “Meanwhile, some countries in the region, such as Thailand and Myanmar, are experiencing political unrest, so there is a lot more uncertainty to deal with in Asia than in developed markets.” — K.D.

You need to be flexible: “You also need a high comfort level with ambiguity and the ability to move quickly. Things are moving very fast, not just economically but politically. For example, often you’ll find that there are no regulations in a given industry, or that the regulations are very vague and can change quickly as politics shift, so you have to be able to work with what you have.” — Natalie Chan

You’ll need a different mindset: “Most companies are operating as a western business with local values, and that is contradictory. A Singaporean may come to work at 9 a.m., put slippers on, then take a two-hour lunch. It’s a very different mentality than the thundering horde energy of the west, so you need to be able to straddle both cultures.” – Tim Gibson-Tullberg

Opportunity abounds in unlikely places: “The traditional players, the large international corporations, always have a demand for talent, but there has been a quick rise of local, homegrown organizations and family enterprises now competing for the top candidates. Many of these private enterprises can offer top recruits more flexibility in terms of growth, the opportunity to make critical decisions and to leverage their skill sets. That makes the market very exciting.” — Michelle Wang Jingji

But you’ll be competing with locals: We are also seeing a shift in demand, especially at the MBA level. In more established markets, such as China, recruiters are telling us they would rather have someone with local experience and the ability to speak Mandarin over someone who might have better technical skills because it’s very important for candidates to understand China.” — Natalie Chan