When Kerryn Colen and her family repatriated back to Australia from Canada after 11 years overseas during COVID, hotel quarantine was a silver lining.  A silver lining that turned into a silver bullet to getting all the repatriation admin done in two short weeks.   Kids enrolled in school, check. Kids football club logistics, check. Great job, check.   What took longer, was feeling ‘normal’ which took nearly 12 months for the family of four.    In this podcast, Kerryn talks about how the family adjusted and the difference in feelings between parents, who were ‘coming h ..read more

Adam Ford describes his approach to the job market after coming home as ‘pretty proactive because I knew it was going to be pretty difficult’.   Adam was coming home to Australia with a North American finance career but what he really wanted was a role in the for-purpose sector.  To achieve this, he knew he had to convince a parochial hiring market NOT to put him in the finance box.   Fast forward a few short years and Adam has successfully swapped boxes.    He now leads the International Association of Privacy Professionals in Australia and New Zealand.   In this ..read more

Udo Doring’s ‘normal’ adult life is not ‘normal’ for most Australians, but  ‘normal’ for a person who grew up as a third culture kid with parents raising children in Indonesia, Vietnam, Hong Kong and mainland China. Which makes him a perfectly “normal” pick for CEO of the Advisory Board Centre, an organisation born in Brisbane but with a presence across the globe. In this episode we cover Udo’s life as an expat-repat “lifer” and the growth of Advisory Boards and opportunities for globally experienced Aussies. Advisory boards have doubled globally in the last two years which means opportun ..read more

Many of my guests leave for overseas for a job opportunity…but few come home for one.   Jason Whiley is one of the lucky few who after 18 years overseas, didn’t just come home with a job with global Security Tech company Giesecke+Devrient – but he came back with a newly created APAC role, which he now does from his home on the Gold Coast.   In this interview, we talk about Jason’s time overseas in Europe and the Middle East which saw him work for two employers, both of whom he has worked for, for nearly three decades.   Having tenure and strong relationships with both employers ..read more

When Bec Macdougall returned to Australia after nine years in London, she never imagined her journey would lead to a rural life in regional Victoria.   Her time in London unlocked a passion for brand curation, where she took on a series of formative roles with the likes of Elle Macpherson’s lifestyle brand The Body and organisations such as Quintessentially, a luxury brand experience consultancy.   It was at this time Bec envisaged her future, developing a collective of brands in the wellness and lifestyle space with experience at the core. She wrote her first business plan in 2007 b ..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.   Coming home and settling in Brisbane, Kate thought she would continue her career in financial services only to be bluntly informed by a local recruiter that her career would not continue in Brisbane unless she was prepared to go into the mining sector.    So, she threw herself into the project of building a house which eventually led her to focus on the clay patch that was he ..read more

New York, New York…If you can make it here, they say you can make it anywhere. And Scott Cooper is living proof.  Scott initially went to New York following his partner and her career. He didn’t have a job or people he knew and to make his situation even more challenging, this expat thought his new life was the right time to ditch his day job in civil engineering and move into digital marketing.   But there was one thing Scott knew how to do well, a skill that is universal the world over – Scott knew how to hustle. Over his first nine months in the city that never sleeps, he met frie ..read more

Trena Blair will be the first to admit, she didn’t want to come home from New York.  In her two and half years in the city that never sleeps, she had met all three of her New York goals – to volunteer at the Met, to study at NYU and to secure a role. And she was happy. Very happy. But a career opportunity back home in Sydney for her husband, meant their New York dream had to come to an end.    Well, at least for him.    For Trena, coming home with a job and a NY-based boss, meant she was able to jet back to her home away from home every three months.  However, aft ..read more

People often do extreme things to avoid Sydney house prices but none more extreme than Chris Edwards and her husband.  Fifteen years ago when staring down an exorbitant quote to renovate their tiny, inner city cottage – they decided to take an easier option.  Move to Singapore. On their own coin and for Chris, without a job.  After a start in publishing, Chris went out on her own and established Honeycombers – a lifestyle guide to all things Singapore that has now grown into a group of publishing and digital services businesses.  Four years ago, after 11 years in Singapore ..read more

A special episode dedicated to all the COVID expat-repats – those Aussies who came home in the pandemic either as a direct result, a planned moved or in some cases just because they were passing through Australia when it all hit.   Podcast producers Margot Andersen and Simone Pregellio share the expat stories from both the podcast and six months of conversations with Australians who have been part of the 600,000 contingent who have come home during COVID.   On top of the normal repatriation challenges, these COVID repats have had some unique challenges.  Navigating closed border ..read more