Not too many growth investors feel comfortable with investing in emerging markets. Employing a judicious strategy in order to understand sector and earnings dynamics, Ivy International Growth Fund manager Thomas Mengel and his team face this challenge. The fund focuses on selecting companies domiciled in developed markets which have been successful on a regional basis and which have the potential to replicate this success.

Investors are always surprised to learn how much of the return, even in the low-yielding U.S. market, comes from dividends. Taken on a global level, the dividend story becomes even more appealing, especially if you have the skill and the experience to benefit from it. The Henderson Global Equity Income Fund employs a rare dividend capture strategy, which allows it to hunt the globe for income opportunities, while remaining a value investor.

Pro-market economic reforms, rising political stability and large-scale foreign investments in Eastern Europe resulted in booming economies, growing purchasing power and rising profits of companies related to the local consumer. Thomas Neuhold, co-manager of the Eastern European Equity Fund, believes that Eastern Europe will continue to grow faster than Western Europe and the U.S. and is playing the theme of the long-term structural growth.

Identifying and buying companies that are achieving growth at the right price is quite a formidable task. Johnson Growth Fund manager Jeff Cornell and his research team succeed in it by having a long-term focus on just 30-40 holdings at a time and trying to buy companies that they think are leaders or have the ability to be leaders within the industry over time.