Jane had a coveted job as the Head of HR for the AFL when she decided to pack it all in to go to New York with nothing but a suitcase, a three-month tourist visa and a pair of itchy feet.
Arriving during the GFC, her skills in HR and leadership were in hot demand, but for all the wrong reasons. One of her first career defining roles was helping American Express downsize their finance department by over 1,000 jobs.
It was a bleak but challenging start to a five-year stint in New York, a city she always loved and still calls her second home. Long brunches, a love of film festivals and devotion to the NFL, all positive by-products.
While in New York she held a number of senior HR positions with different financial services companies. She describes her time in New York as career defining, yet when she got home local recruiters considered her having been ‘out of the market for the last five years’ and showed an open hostility towards her international experience that still shocks her today.
She spent twelve months looking for a role back home. That’s a lot of coffees.
Combined with facing challenges in the job market, Jane felt restless – Australia wasn’t the country she had left. And she wasn’t the same either.
But after 12 months, she started to find her groove using her resilience and change skills to undertake a number of contracts and advisory jobs. She now actively seeks out expats when she is advising businesses that are start-ups or growing – both for their resilience skills and their networks.
She no longer feels the restless itch to return to New York. Well, almost. As long as the NFL isn’t on.
