When Isaac Merritt Singer set up a branch of his sewing machine maker in Paris in 1855, he probably did not think he was blazing a trail US companies would still be following more than 150 years later. Singer's expansion in France turned the New York-based company into the first US multinational, pioneering a business model that would be adopted by other icons of American capitalism, from Ford to Standard Oil to General Electric.

But perhaps the most important legacy of Singer's daring move was that it worked: within six years of the French opening, foreign sales had exceeded US revenues. It is a lesson not lost on today's corporate leaders.