The world of global work has never been short of disruptions. Geopolitical crises, shifting trade policies, travel restrictions, or technological upheaval, these are not occasional blips but recurring features of cross-border professional life. And yet, when we think about how global professionals manage these disruptions, we tend to focus almost entirely on the disruption itself: […]
The Case for Strategic Idleness in a Global Role
Having just returned from our annual family skiing trip, I find myself once again struck by a paradox: six hours a day on the slopes leaves your legs aching and your lungs burning, yet you come back to the office not depleted but genuinely recharged. The physical exhaustion is real, but the cognitive renewal is […]
Learning to Stay: Why Stability Might Be the New Global Mobility Skill
Over 18 years. That’s how long I’ve called Barcelona home—longer than I’ve lived anywhere else in my adult life. For someone whose career spanned countries like Germany, France, Singapore and Australia, this wasn’t the script I imagined. Like many globally mobile professionals, I spent my early career chasing the next opportunity, the next horizon. Each […]
Exit Wounds: On the Beautiful Ache of Being Multicultural
My father-in-law recently shared Peter Godwin’s memoir “Exit Wounds: A Story of Love, Loss, and Occasional Wars” with me. Like my father-in-law, who grew up in Zimbabwe before migrating to Australia, Godwin is intimately familiar with the peculiar grief of belonging to multiple places and none fully. Born and raised in Zimbabwe, educated in England, […]
When “Fluency” Becomes a Gate: The New Face of Linguistic Racism
A talented product manager moves from Bogotá to Berlin. Her metrics are strong, her team trusts her, yet she keeps hearing small comments: “Could you say that again, more clearly?” “Let’s have James handle the client call—he’s more… fluent.” No one is overtly hostile. Still, over time, the message is unmistakable: your ideas are fine, but […]
Redefining the Nomadic Elite
Back in 2015, I wrote about what I then called the “nomadic elite”—a small but visible group of professionals who seemed to thrive on constant relocation, moving from one international assignment to the next with relative ease. At the time, I questioned whether we were perhaps celebrating this lifestyle too much, and overlooking the ways […]
How AI Is Rewriting the Rules of Global Work
For decades, global professionals have developed their effectiveness through language learning, cultural sensitivity, and on-the-ground, immersive experiences. Now, artificial intelligence (AI) is entering the picture, not as a replacement for these hard-won capabilities, but as a complement that could redefine how we experience global work. AI is already reshaping many dimensions of cross-border collaboration. Take […]
What Motivates People to Take on Global Work?
Although travel restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic are taking a toll on physically mobile people such as expatriates or migrants, the number of people working across national boundaries is nowhere near stagnating. In fact, studies such as the Santa Fe Relocation Global Mobility Survey 2020/21 suggest that the nature of global mobility is evolving […]
Growth Mindset in Global Work: The Impact of the Belief of Malleability
In my last blog post I discussed Dweck’s mindsets theory and its implications in organizational settings, namely in relation to employees’ interests and inter-disciplinary problem solving skills. Today I would like to follow-up on the topic by looking more specifically into mindsets theory in the context of global work and expatriation. Indeed, the possible impact of a growth […]
‘Going from Hands to Heads to Hearts’
Thinking about our future can be tough at times. In this blog I write about trends, important developments and influential events at a global scale, which lately often translates into the keywords of volatility, protectionism, populism, globalization threats, and automation. So, what is the future of work on the global basis? Certainly unclear and, clearly, […]
Challenges of Global Mobility: The Latest Industry Report
We have recently come to a point where many declaim the end of globalization as we have known it. Yet, amid this anti-globalization rhetoric, global businesses are clearly taking a different stance, arguing that more, not less, globally proficient talent is needed. A recent AXA World of Work Report, which surveyed 250 firms in eight […]