The real internationalization of Church leadership

 some would argue that the Church first went global no later the 1970s when Neal A. Maxwell and the Church Board of Education decided instead of having Americans run the Church Educational System worldwide, they would proactively recruit people from various countries and as much as possible have the Church Educational System run by locals. This is why Elder uceda, Elder Taylor Godoy, Elder De Hoyos and Elder Dube among LDS general authroties from outside the US all spent their careers running the Church's supplemental weekday religious education programs (seminaries and institutes) in their various countries, or at least as full-time Church employees running it. Elder De Hoyos may have never run it for more than Mexico. Elder Uceda I am not 100% sure on what the area he oversaw was exactly. Elder Godoy was last running the Church Educational System in his native Peru, plus Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela. Elder Dube ran it in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi. The data on this issue is hard to find, but I have the impression that basically all international areas had locals running the Church Educational System at all levels, at a time when the Presiding Bishopric which oversees properties of the Church and distribution of funds and other physical operational activities was often relying more on Americans sent abroad. Thus the person who recruited Elder Soares into working as a fulltime employee of the LDS Church as Brazil South Area auditor in the 1990s was an American working as the head of temproal affairs in the Brazil Area at a time when the CES had been run by Brazilians for over 20 years. Elder Michael J. Teh, the only current general authority seventy from the Philippines, spent his career working for the Church. He was head of member and statistical records for the Philluipines Area and before that had worked as temple recorder. So less focused on fiancial issues than Soares, but not in a position where he worked directly with the teaching of Church doctrines, as were Dube, De Hoyos, Uceda and Godoy (plus Elder Paul Johnson from the US, not to mention Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the 12, although Holland since he was a religion professor at BYU came up from a slightly more acdemic pathway than some of the others), Elder Tanuiel B. Wakolothe only general authority seventy to date from Fiji, spent his early career as a police officer. However he was head of the Church's Fiji Service Center before becoming a mission president (in Arkansas, but that is another story). I have not yet figured out if this service center was involved in tracking land records, distributing lesson materials, or a place where employment and other services were given, or maybe even both.