10 April 2010 15:15
Many expat Kiwis want to work back home
New Zealand firms should not feel bad about seeking top talent overseas, just as Kiwis sometimes had to progress their careers abroad, a top executive recruiter says
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Lilias Bell, of Wellington firm Bell McCaw Bampfylde, says hiring leaders from overseas was a way of bringing new thinking and rigour to a company.
"I don't think it's a matter of us not valuing who's local but the value of bringing international people in and sending Kiwis out is that we get greater growth.
"And often those international placements have proven their worth," she said. "For instance, we managed to find the person who put the Oyster Card into London to come to New Zealand to spend two years here working with Infratil to bring Snapper to New Zealand.
"Nobody in New Zealand would have known where to begin because we'd never had that card ticketing system."
Bell McCaw Bampfylde is itself spreading its wings internationally, having just been bought by the international leadership advisory Heidrick & Struggles International.
Mrs Bell, who founded her firm 10 years ago, will remain in Wellington and become a partner of the bigger firm.
She said the flow of executives overseas was also inevitable as New Zealand did not have big enough opportunities to keep some people at home.
Sir Ralph Norris, boss of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, or John Hood, the first non-British chancellor of Oxford University, were good examples of that. "I think we're really in a global market now ... and I think if we're too protective of our talent then they don't grow."
However, it was often possible to bring New Zealand high fliers back as board directors.
Some, Mrs Bell said, did return to live but that often presented a problem in finding a suitable job.
"There are a lot of Kiwis who want to come home. The challenge is, when they've had a very big job offshore, it's hard for them to adapt to a much smaller job here...
"They either have to go into running a small start-up where they can have a lot of freedom, or they have to adjust their thinking and take a bit of a pay cut to come back.
"But many are willing to do it. There's a huge amount of goodwill from offshore Kiwis who want to come back and do their bit for New Zealand.
"I've had one guy who's run something phenomenal, an IT shop of 15,000 people. Well we don't have that in New Zealand so they need to find a place where they add value but they have to adjust to a smaller scale.
"The attraction is that they get broader experience, so instead of running an IT shop you could be running a bank. So there are opportunities but you have to tailor the right one."
She is positive about the progress happening in both the state and private sector and believes the Government is benefiting from the goodwill of expatriates in its planning projects.
Mrs Bell hit headlines recently when it was revealed that she uncovered an incomplete qualification on the CV of top civil servant Mary Anne Thompson. She said it was unusual for fraud to take place but in general, recruitment agencies needed to be more vigilant.
"It's much more important now than when I started in search 20 years ago, when somehow the concept of checking CVs and qualifications didn't occur because you didn't have that same ability to do electronic fraud you can do now."
Courtesy Business Day
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