“I work at a Global Best Company!”

• Company: NetApp
• Best Global Companies rank: 3
• Role: regional director of NetApp Iberia, Madrid

When Maria Jose Miranda was approached five years ago about taking a job in sales at the data storage company's Spanish subsidiary, she knew very little about the company. What she did know left her feeling uneasy. After all, basically all of her previous sales experience had come within the software industry, at companies such as Oracle and Panda Security. Put simply, she wasn't sure she could sell NetApp. Miranda thought NetApp and its data storage service offerings were "more techie" than the software products she was used to selling and she worried that her business skills would not be enough to cover the gaps in her technical knowledge of data storage. But the company allayed her fears by assuring her that NetApp is actually a lot more like a software company than a hardware company in the way that it markets its services. Once she was put at ease, Miranda finally agreed to an interview, where she was immediately impressed by the company's culture. "It was a very professional way of treating me and explaining to me what the company was and why they were looking for a person like me. I became very interested." She took a senior sales position and, after less than a year, was named the subsidiary's regional director when her boss was promoted within the company. NetApp is different than some of her previous employers, Miranda says, in that the company's culture places a high value on teamwork -- something that helps her motivate her 48 employees with team-building exercises, such as group volunteering efforts and regular soccer games played against teams at other local IT companies. The company also keeps the lines of communication open with its employees by encouraging them to form groups that come up with ideas to improve the company, Miranda adds. "We encourage people to innovate every single day."

• Company: eBay
• Best Global Companies rank: 24
• Role: legal director, EU Marketplaces, Paris

In 2007, Catherine Brel was working in Yahoo's legal department in France when a headhunter approached her with an offer from eBay that she couldn't refuse. Brel was not necessarily looking to leave her job, but ebay was "really, the place to be" as far as navigating a complex, progressive legal landscape, especially in France where the company was facing lawsuits brought by French retailers LVMH and L'Oreal over counterfeit goods sold on eBay. "All the matters that eBay faced at that time were the most important within the legal community," she says. Brel could not resist the opportunity to get a front-row seat for some of the company's most intriguing legal fights, so she joined as a senior legal manager for eBay France. There, she immediately entered the fray with respect to intellectual property law and litigation support on those two lawsuits, both of which ultimately settled earlier this year. Even though those cases are over, Brel still feels at home at eBay, where, as a mother of three, she appreciates being allowed to have a flexible work schedule. And, she says the lines of communication with her U.S. managers are always open, even when she has a change of heart about her career. Brel has had several different roles within the legal department, moving from senior legal manager to roles working on intellectual property brand relations in Europe and globally. A few months ago, she decided she was interested in a more business-oriented position, so eBay gave her the opportunity to work on business development for its EU Marketplaces division. "They helped me a lot to develop my own career, so each time I wanted to change a role ... they gave me that opportunity."

• Company: Diageo
• Best Global Companies rank: 20
• Role: head of sales effectiveness, Diageo Mexico

There was a time, more than four years ago, when Dulce Cano thought Diageo might be the one that got away. She was working as a strategy and commercial manager at Procter & Gamble, where she'd been for roughly 10 years since joining the giant company as an intern while still earning her marketing degree at the Tecnol?gico de Monterrey. Cano was wary about leaving the company she knew so well, but she also felt that her career was not advancing as quickly as it could be. Some friends and former colleagues at Diageo told her the U.K. spirits company was hiring and that it offered employees more freedom to take on new roles and challenges than she would have if she stayed at P&G. When she interviewed for an open position at the spirits company, Cano says she "saw a lot of opportunities to grow" and she was also impressed with Diageo's culture, which seemed to encourage new ideas. Unfortunately, Cano was told she was overqualified for the open position, though the hiring manager told her that he was impressed and he would call her as soon as Diageo had another opening. Cano was sure she would never hear from the company again. "It was like something weird, because I think, 'Nobody will call me again,'" she says now. But roughly nine months later Cano was surprised when Diageo circled back with a potential marketing job. This time everything worked out. She got the job at Diageo and in the three years since she was hired, Cano has been promoted twice, most recently to the head of sales effectiveness. She oversees the sale of a wide range of Diageo spirits -- including Johnny Walker scotch, Captain Morgan rum, and a regional whisky brand called Buchanan's -- at roughly 2,000 different locations across Mexico.

• Company: EMC
• Best Global Companies rank: 18
• Role: Channel sales manager, Dubai

"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." The timeworn saying only partly applies to Charbel Zreiby, 36, and the story of how he started working for EMC. In 2010, Zreiby was working in technical sales as a consultant for Hewlett-Packard in the UAE, where he says EMC is the biggest player in the data storage market. After a few years working at H-P, Zreiby says EMC was easily his team's biggest competition and the company that would eventually employ him often beat out H-P for clients. EMC's market dominance was attractive, Zreiby says, but so was the way the company approached business. "[EMC] was probably the company that I [aspired] to join at a certain point in time because I could see how passionate they were about their work from the outside," he says. EMC also took notice of Zreiby, thanks to a number of recommendations from customers and partner companies. After asking around about him, EMC eventually reached out to Zreiby in early 2010 with an opportunity to become a technical sales manager. Zreiby survived three rounds of interviews before securing the job that March. After almost three years, though, he decided that a career on the technological side of EMC's business might not be his best option. "EMC is a sales-driven organization and I thought that I can have more career growth" in a different role, he says. Zreiby discussed his options with EMC management before he sought and won his current job as a channel sales manager, which he calls "a hybrid role" managing a three-person team that offers both sales and technology support to EMC-affiliated partners, such as distributors and cloud service providers, among others. Zreiby says his managers supported his decision to switch paths and helped him navigate the process. Of course, he's come to expect that type of support from EMC, where Zreiby says he feels like he is "part of a family." For instance, after his new team achieved 100% growth last year while increasing market share in the UAE, EMC rewarded Zreiby by naming him the top EMC channel sales manager in a region covering Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

• Company: Monsanto
• Best Global Companies rank: 8
• Role: brand activation and distribution manager, Buenos Aires

Monsanto may not have many fans in the anti-GMO community, but that doesn't mean employees of the world's largest seed company don't love where they work. Juan Moreno, 37, is one of those employees. He joined Monsanto in Bueno Aires 12 years ago after putting his mechanical engineering degree to good use working in maintenance for Exxon Mobil. When he left Exxon, Moreno knew he wanted a more business-oriented job, but he wasn't entirely sure where he wanted his career to go. "I needed a more dynamic environment," say Moreno, who spent the next seven years in Monsanto's manufacturing division. During that time, Moreno also hit the books, going back to school to earn his MBA - with help from Monsanto, which paid part of his tuition at Universidad del CEMA. The degree helped Moreno work his way up the ladder at Monsanto, eventually landing him a gig as an engineering supervisor, but it also taught him more about other areas of business that he wanted to tackle: sales and marketing. When Moreno approached his managers about a career change in 2009, he says they were very encouraging. "This is very common here at Monsanto," Moreno says. "You can talk to managers in a very open way about your career and your goals and they will help you to make it happen." Moreno soon jumped to Monsanto's crop protection division, where he took a junior position dealing with selling the company's herbicides across Latin America. "It was such a radical change, but it was what I was looking for and what I have discovered was my career vocation," he says. Moreno continued up the ladder and now leads the company's team selling and marketing crop protection products in his region as a brand activation and distribution manager. At Monsanto, Moreno says, he is allowed to be the architect of his own career thanks to the empowerment to take initiative and risks that the company bestows upon its employees. "You can feel it from your first second working for Monsanto."

READ MORE: The 25 Best Global Companies to Work For in 2014