Deborah de Cerff’s career is supporting the careers of expats. For the last 30 years, she has helped individuals and organisations move lives and careers across the world and back again. She is now Founder and Chair of The Employee Mobility Institute advocating, promoting and growing the talent mobility industry throughout Australasia.
Senior Australian expats with global experience are highly sought after for positions on Advisory Boards according to Lousie Broekman, founder and CEO of the Advisory Board Centre. Louise founded the Centre 10 years ago and has grown the Centre to be one of the leading professional bodies for the advisory sector globally with a presence now in more than 20 countries.
Has the new era of flexible and hybrid working opened up new opportunities for C-suite expats looking to return home? Co-founder and Chief People Office of Leaders on Demand Julia Van Graas certainly thinks so.Julia leads a team of experienced, hands on c-suite executives who deliver on-demand support to CEOs and organisations looking to scale. In this podcast she talks about working with the on-demand team, 85% of whom are Australians who have lived and worked overseas, and the experience they bring to Leader on Demand clients in Australia. And why this style of work, is so attractive to returning Australian executives.
Career, lifestyle and financial goals are all linked and so is the planning. John Versace is a financial planner at Apt Wealth and leads their expat practice. For the last six years he has talked to Australian expats every day in all corners of the globe, expats carving out careers in tech, medical fields, advertising, entertainment…even a few vets!
While the headline of a ‘skills shortage’ appears to be welcome news for any Australian expat planning to come home and find a new role, CEO of Advance.org Johanna Pitman warns it may not be the silver bullet expat think it is.
Working overseas in much bigger countries and markets for many expats advances their career, however as Jan Lynch discovered when she came home to Melbourne, sometimes this overseas experience can advance yourself out of a career. This was what happened to Jan when she brought her e-commerce career from Hong Kong and China home in 2017. According to Jack Ma, e-commerce in China is the ‘main meal’, in the US it is the ‘desert’. When Jan came home, she realised in Australia, e-commerce was still considered a ‘side-dish’.
Data and tech. It is hard to find a skill and an industry in higher demand right now. So when Wage Reis came home in March 2020 after two years working for Facebook in London working with the world’s largest advertising agencies she too was confident that having this juggernaut brand on her CV would at least start some conversations.
For Cyber Security expert Claire Pales, starting her own business was always on her ‘career to-do list’ but came about sooner than she expected. She certainly wasn’t planning for it to be right after returning from four years in Hong Kong with two young children in tow. However, some difficult experiences with local recruiters in Melbourne delivered her the ultimate blessing in disguise – it showed her a gap in the market. And her experience as an expat, gave her the confidence to do something about it.
There can be a perception that the experience of living and working abroad best suits an extraverted, risk taker. A person with no ties, or responsibilities, who can run head-first into change because after all, an expat is supposedly born with ‘a sense of adventure’. However, cliches abound when it comes to describing the average
Why you don’t have to be adventurous to be a successful expat Read More »
Kate’s husband had been buying her books on gardening for years. But as a marketer in financial services for over 10 years in the UK, planting was always a passion pursuit for Kate not a professional one.
