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A podcast that explores the question: What could be so hard about returning home after years living overseas? In each episode, Margot Andersen sits down with a former Aussie expat to discuss how they survived repatriation and reverse culture shock. How they navigated the logistics of career, friends and family to successfully find their new place at home... and all without losing their global spirit!
Episodes
Wednesday Mar 24, 2021
Bonus Episode: Margot Andersen
Wednesday Mar 24, 2021
Wednesday Mar 24, 2021
Turning the mic on Insync Network Group founder Margot Andersen to hear her expat tale and motivation for setting up the network and podcast.
Monday Dec 14, 2020
S1 Ep6: Ben Deguara
Monday Dec 14, 2020
Monday Dec 14, 2020
Rugby boots and guitars – these are Ben Deguara’s secret weapons for integrating into a new life overseas. And he should know – he has done it twice already at opposite ends of the world.
Ben is our series first “double boomeranger”. His first expat journey was to London for four years, starting an overseas career in financial services on the day of the global financial crisis. He returned to Sydney and just when he was getting back into the groove of Sydney life two years later, he was offered an opportunity to move to Hong Kong.
Now he’s back – but doesn’t rule out a third overseas adventure in the future.
Ben approached his second expat journey very differently to his first. The experience of coming home from London and facing not only friends and family who couldn’t relate to his overseas journey but the indifference shown by recruiters to his international experience meant he was a lot more prepared the second time around.
In Hong Kong, he made sure he kept his connections in Australia close and started preparing for his return nearly a year before he finally made the leap.
As for rugby boots and guitars – Ben used his hobbies as ways to meet lifelong friends that he has today. So if he does go again, I am sure these are the first things that get packed.
Monday Dec 14, 2020
S1 Ep5: Glen Falting
Monday Dec 14, 2020
Monday Dec 14, 2020
Some people collect snow domes from countries they visit, Glen and his wife collected children. Their stints as an expat couple in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore all symbolically marked with the birth of kids – and doubly celebrated in Hong Kong with the arrival of twins.
When they arrived in Brisbane after almost two decades abroad, they faced a dual challenge of dealing with the grief of the end of an overseas adventure and four children who struggled to name all of Australia’s states and territories.
Like many expat families, Glen wanted his kids to have the right balance of feeling like a global citizen at the same time as having a good sense of where they belonged. So after ten years in Singapore and another decade before this in Tokyo, Hong Kong and London, Glen and his wife made the difficult decision to return home.
This was a bit of a shock for the kids who had only ever really experienced Australia on holidays. Glen recounts the family attending the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast and seeing his kids barrack for Singapore.
For Glen and his wife, the transition was tough too. His wife lost her network and for Glen, he had to adjust to creating a career in Brisbane, after having a big role in a regional hub like Singapore.
But what started with a sense of grief, Glen now says is the best decision the Faltings have ever made. The kids are becoming little Aussies and Glen and his wife have started their own law firm – using their global contacts and experience to help overseas businesses in Australia.
Monday Dec 14, 2020
S1 Ep4: Mandy Mirghashini
Monday Dec 14, 2020
Monday Dec 14, 2020
For Mandy, the decision to move to the Hague with her family was a case of taking an opportunity to walk in the shoes of the people she had spent her career advising.
As a HR professional in global mobility for Shell, there was no better way to understand the experience of the expat and then repat than to live it herself!
Mandy’s journey wasn’t a solo one – she left Melbourne for the Netherlands in 2008 with her husband and her 18 month old son. She reflects that the expat journey was different for every family member. For her engineer husband, the early years were focused on looking after their young son whilst trying to study in a foreign language. When they moved to Poland, he pursued remote learning and has created a new career path. For their son, he arrived in Australia on the cusp of high-school as a ‘third-culture’ kid with no experience of what it is like to grow up Australian.
In some respects, it was Mandy’s day-to-day world with Shell that was the most consistent. She talks about the expat experience for family members being ‘not static’. It changes all the time for those who have had to adjust around the family member with the job and it is important to ‘check-in’ regularly.
After a decade overseas, Mandy relocated back to Melbourne with Shell, only to find that the Australian head-office had moved to Perth! However, her experience of working as part of a global team where working remotely and across different time zones is the norm meant this wasn’t a hurdle and she was probably more prepared for COVID than most of us.
Tuesday Nov 03, 2020
S1 Ep3: Jan McGrath
Tuesday Nov 03, 2020
Tuesday Nov 03, 2020
Jan told friends she was going to Hong Kong for a two-year adventure.
Lucky no one held her mail, because she returned 18 years later via a life and career detour to the UK and the US.
The initial lure overseas was the chance to launch HSBC’s world first chip-based technology for payments cards. Completing a unique project such as this meant that when she was finished, she was in hot demand and after Hong Kong moved to London and from there, to the US working with MasterCard.
Along the way she met her American husband Larry and spent years in Arizona as step-mum to two American teens.
After more than 15 years, her employer asked Jan “Where to next?” and to her own surprise, she said “home”. While it took 12 months to plan a role back home, it took Larry 60 seconds to grab shorts and thongs and say, “I’m in!”
While she returned home with a role, her professional life was challenging. A lack of a local network nor an understanding from the market of what she had done in her career created a sense of disconnection. When she went out to find a new role – her 20-year international career in financial services was overlooked by the major banks. It was a difficult time.
But while the traditional banks weren’t interested – Australia’s fintech sector certainly was. Jan is now working at Novatti, an innovative high growth payment services company and is an active mentor to founders and investors through work with Stone and Chalk.
Her move from Sydney to Melbourne during COVID ironically has been her least dramatic. She is finally using her international skills to their greatest potential. Larry is still wearing shorts.
Tuesday Nov 03, 2020
S1 Ep2: Jane Hollman
Tuesday Nov 03, 2020
Tuesday Nov 03, 2020
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.