Boomeranging: Expat to Repat boomeranging

The stories of accompanying expats, often go untold. With a focus on careers as the primary driver for relocation, it is important to remember the families of those that transition.
 
When Andrea Barton's husband was offered a relocation to Lagos, Nigeria, Andrea was forced to think about her career and how she could reshape it. Throwing herself initially into community initiatives Andrea explored her passion for writing and storytelling. Over the next 13 years and multiple moves, Andrea’s writing drew inspiration from the people, places and communities she and her family found themselves living in.
 
Five books later, Andrea's writing has continued to shape her career and move with her now that she has returned to Australia. Since arriving ‘home’, Andrea has been working on developing her literary network, starting her own company and finalising her novel.
 
Her debut novel, The Godfather of Dance, was published this year and is available now.  

With a 25-year career bridging the worlds between Australia and the Middle East, Adam Malouf is now forging a new path, in a new sector and creating a new, albeit familiar life for him and his family.
 
The possibility of unchartered opportunity first attracted Adam to Dubai in 2004, long before the UAE was frequented by the volume of expat Australians who now work and live in the region. Initially attracted to the region as a way of fast tracking his legal career, Adam's career rapidly expanded through a series of investment roles and engagements on multiple board and committees, including the Australian Business Council in Dubai and the Australia Arab Chamber of Commerce and the AICD Middle East advisory committee – reinforcing his contribution in both regions.
 
It was on a family holiday back in Australia when his kids uttered the words ‘Dad we think it’s time, we want to come back to Australia’ that the idea of returning was planted. Having already repatriated once before, Adam knew it was going to take more than a couple of calls to recruiters and a scan of the jobs page in the weekend paper to land the right opportunity. Determined to return with a role - and a meaningful one at that, Adam set about putting together a robust plan to leverage his networks – both in Australia and abroad - as he explored what was possible.
 
The plan worked and Adam returned in 2023 to the role of COO of the University of Wollongong.

When Chelsea Guy came back from Tokyo, and the work experience of the lifetime, she found she had still a pay cheque but didn’t have a role.
 
Chelsea had worked her way through various marketing roles at Toyota when there was an opportunity to put her hand up for a coveted secondment. Her assignment – digital marketing to support Toyota’s sponsorship of the Tokyo Olympics.
 
For Chelsea, not even being struck by the COVID curse, could diminish the experience she gained working with an international team, on the world’s biggest event while learning a new skill in digital. However, when she returned to Melbourne two years later, she found she and her new experience didn’t quite fit, even in the office she had worked for, for many years.
 
Her Japanese experience unleashed her passion for major international events, and 18-months after returning home, Chelsea strategically forged a path to secure a coveted role at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
 
Chelsea has managed to carve out a career that harnesses her global sponsorship experience, elevates her international connections and supports her passion for delivering world-class events.
 
Today, I talk to Chelsea about how her international experience not only lit her career flame but how she has combined all her experiences to create a pathway to her her dream role.

When Angella left Australia at aged 29, she knew she would be gone longer than two years.  With expat parents and grandparents, a life overseas was always on the cards.
 
But she didn’t know it would be 22 years.
 
Or that her time overseas would include 13 years in Bahrain.
 
Or that when she eventually came home, she would change her professional identity.
 
For someone who had always worked in talent management and workforce design, and whose career had led her family’s choice of where to live, changing her career path was particularly profound.
 
It was also the result of an evolution not revolution.
 
In this podcast, Angella shares how coming home to Australia and starting again, forced her to evaluate her career path and the turn it took next.  She shares her philosophy of ‘saying yes to everything’ to build knowledge and networks and how it is okay for someone who manages careers to ask for help managing their own.

Leonora was extremely excited when she landed in Hong Kong.  A dynamic, exciting and unique place with family connections it had the potential to be her forever home.
 
But in 2021  Covid made Leonora feel uncomfortably isolated from family and confirmed for her that Australia was where she wanted to base herself.
 
But she didn’t just flick the switch and jump on the next flight home.
 
That would be too risky for this risk professional.
 
She took the same structured approach that she has used to manage a career in risk and financial services, to managing her move home both professionally and personally.
 
In short, Leonora treated finding a job, like a job and six months later found herself juggling opportunities for employment, business and a board role with a not for profit.
 
For those expat-repats who find comfort in structure, she is a great example of how to build your own confidence in your move back home – by using the skills you already have.

When James Bingham the IT Project Manager left for London in 2014, little did he know that he would come back to Australia almost 8 years later with a new career in an industry that to this day, you can’t do a degree or course in.
 
Yet in a post COVID world, is now one of the most talked about subjects.
 
Workplace strategy.
 
James was working with NBCUniversal in London when he was offered the chance to relocate to New York and keep his overseas adventure alive. In New York, he helped NBCUniversal set up their offices all over the US and Canada.  This led him to WeWork, which at the time was leading the world in re-inventing co-working communities and spaces.
 
Here, James was allowed to dream and create a new future of work - at a time when the world need to pivot its thinking about work with the offset of the pandemic.  It was also here where he met some kindred spirits and the idea of Alidade, a real estate and workplace strategy advisory company was born. 
 
James came home mid-pandemic and has spent the last three years leading Alidade’s presence in Australia and the Asia Pacific. We talk about the challenge of bringing his overseas experience home and the challenge of adapting big market strategies it to a smaller market like Australia - that approaches innovation in a much different way to the Americans!  He offers some great advice for Aussies coming home and wanting to start a business in an industry that may have been going at a different speed and scale to Australia.