In this episode of Kiwi Flees I talk to Toronto-based financier, Darren Sissons, who left Aotearoa New Zealand in 1993, heading to Taiwan with $1,500 in his pocket. Darren spent five years there learning Mandarin, working in a trading company focused on export markets, and doing the sort of long-week, high-pressure apprenticeship that helped shape the resilience and perspective he's carried through the rest of his life. Since leaving New Zealand, Darren has also lived and worked in the UK before settling in Canada. He’s held senior roles at Portfolio Management Corp, Scotiabank, Scotiabank Private Equity, Osprey Capital, and RBC and is now Partner & Portfolio Manager, Global Equities, at Campbell, Lee & Ross Investment Management. His career has spanned venture capital, private equity, public equities, derivatives, mergers & acquisitions, restructuring, financing, strategy, and high-net-worth wealth management. Darren talks about the experience of becoming an amalgam of different national, cultural, and business environments, and what it feels like to return to NZ when some people still see you as the person who left, back in the day. We explore what he calls “paradise lost” - the emotional cost some offshore Kiwis carry through absence from home - and also look at New Zealand through Darren’s global investment lens. This includes our relationship with housing, capital, sovereign wealth, education, and ambition. I found Darren's view on foundation structures - think Denmark's iconic Carlsberg brand - fascinating. These structures can see a foundation hold a controlling stake in a company of national significance, helping keep strategically important businesses from simply being sold offshore to well-heeled bidders. Darren has spent much of his career assessing whether companies, people, strategies, incentives, and numbers stack up. That makes for a candid conversation about New Zealand, the diaspora, and what small countries need to get right if they want to compete. A huge thanks to Darren for joining me on Kiwi Flees. You can find him on LinkedIn here and the book recommendation made during the pod was Banker to the Poor by Muhammad Yunus. On behalf of OFNZ, thank you for listening and sharing the pod. My huge thanks to the Kiwi Flees for candid conversations, to my sound engineer Robbie Mulligan and the team at Matrix Digital (Wgtn), and to Kea for promoting the pod. If you're a Kiwi Flee or know someone who should be, please get in touch at: kiwiflees@onlyfromnz.co.nz Please subscribe, leave a review, and join me in a fortnight for our next episode.
