expat insider 1 InterNations

The World Through Expat Eyes – The Good, The Bad, and The Challenges

Working outside of your comfort zone can be a challenge. Relocating to a new country for work can be taxing. Life as an expat typically means working in a different environment, with new colleagues, settling into a new area and making a new city home, and needing to establish a new social life. The insights from the latest InterNations expatriate …

expat management

Money, Time, Manpower – Stinginess With a Tiny Slice May Cost You the Entire Expat Pie

Any cost-conscious organization sending employees abroad needs to be prudent and justify all the expenses of an expatriate assignment. Smart organizations know that a small percentage of the overall expat management cost protects their investment in global talent. International employee relocations can fail for various reasons: A company may have chosen the wrong team member for the overseas job. The expat …

The Best (and worst) Countries for Expat Job Assignments

Relocating to a new country can be a challenge. It typically means working in a different environment, with new colleagues, settling into a new city and making it home, and needing to establish a new social life. The latest InterNations expatriate survey might make it easier to decide which destination will be best for an international job assignment. According to global …

expat spouse

The Secret to Managing Expat Assignments for Modern Families? Start with the Spouse

Skilled professionals are increasingly likely to have an equally skilled partner at home. This makes it harder for companies to fill overseas positions when the move affects two professional careers. Multinational corporations are starting to recognize and try to understand the complexities of managing talent globally. But we wondered whether they are considering the “right” scope of complexities. As an …

What do expatriates want?

Take the survey Are you currently an expatriate on a foreign work assignment? Have you lived and worked abroad in the past? Are you considering taking a position overseas? Then this survey is for you! Please take a minute to answer these short questions for expats. This brief questionnaire is designed to help us better understand how people who live …

Mastering a mixed marriage in Indonesia [The Culture Guy Podcast]

Silke Irmscher talks about transitioning from Saxony to Java On this episode Silke Irmscher, founder of Culturenergy, tells her story of how she left Germany and fell in love with Indonesia and, in fact, found love on the island of Java. Silke has been living in Indonesia for more than 15 years and together with her husband, Ri Yanto, she …

When moving within the U.S. feels like going from Morocco to Finland [The Culture Guy Podcast]

Melissa Hahn shares how the question of identity can shape a relationship between partners from different cultures. She also describes how the geographical distance within one country can equal that of the opposite ends of a continent. Born and raised in Arizona, Melissa has had many opportunities to travel and live abroad and to experience other cultures. However, the first time …

The secret of mastering a mixed-culture marriage [The Culture Guy Podcast]

Carmen Ring explains why tolerance will only get you through the first year of an intercultural relationship Born in Ploiești, Romania – at a time when the Iron Curtain was still closed and her country was governed under the dictatorship rule of Nicolae Ceaușescu – Carmen now lives in New York State with her American husband and their toddler son. …

How to build cross-cultural rapport by leaving your food comfort zone [The Culture Guy Podcast]

When he moved within the United States, from Maryland to Arkansas, Michael Spencer realized that some of the stories about the U.S. South are sometimes more than just stereotypes. Or, as he found out, Southerners like their tea sweet. Which meant that rapport building in the Ozarks is different than at the Chesapeake Bay. Then his company offered him an …

When the expat dream turns into a career challenge [The Culture Guy Podcast]

In the past few weeks we have been posting several useful articles on our Facebook Page about life abroad, the challenges of expatriation, raising children overseas with two languages, and repatriating back home after having lived abroad for years. So it is time we let someone who has been through all of these stages share her story. Meet Germany-native Tina …

The Table of Elements for Global Business Readiness

What do expat families need away from home? Which components make a community a desirable destination global business and foreign assignees? Our clients trust us and rely on us that we will lead their teams to more success across cultural borders. We are the aspirin to your expat headache. So we researched the most important success factors and compiled them …

Balancing different leadership approaches as an expat boss [The Culture Guy Podcast]

As the daughter of first generation immigrants to Australia, Stephanie Barros learned from childhood on how to balance the cultures of her birth country and those cultures represented in her family who, hailing from the Philippines, combines roots from England, Spain, Portugal, and Germany. Today, living in Singapore with her family and working as an executive for a U.S.-based, multinational …

Follow your passion to deal with the challenges of living abroad [The Culture Guy Podcast]

Living abroad as an expatriate family comes with privileges and challenges. Belén Galindo Lizaldre and her husband Roberto Goñi Ruiz uprooted their family of four from Pamplona (Spain) to move to Chattanooga, TN in the United States. Three years in the Tennessee Valley have left a lasting impression on this expat family and on this episode Belén & Roberto share …

What do expat families need away from home? Join the conversation!

You may have heard the phrase: Companies don’t go global, people do. And the people who go global to take their companies with them want to be as successful abroad as possible. Who is responsible for their success? There are many factors: The expatriates themselves have to do what’s in their power to get the skills, tools, and support they …

How learning to say “I’m sorry” helps you recover from cultural faux pas [The Culture Guy Podcast]

In this episode Christian talks to Mamie Lamley, founder of Mandala Mystics and Coach at Empowerment on Fire. Ms. Mamie is a native of Waiʻanae, a small city on the island of O’ahu, which is part of Hawai’i, the 50th State of the USA. During the interview she explains how to properly pronounce these place names, and you’ll learn what …

From New Zealand to China, from Australia to Papua New Guinea [The Culture Guy Podcast]

In this episode Christian talks to Trisha Carter, founder of the Cultural Intelligence (CI) Collective in Sydney (Australia). The CI Collective is a comprehensive on-line resource that supports successful cross-cultural adaptation. Trisha shares with us her experience of living and working in several Southeast Asian cultures. She has over 15 years experience as an intercultural coach and trainer helping hundreds of …

Work. Together. Across Cultures.

Welcome to The Culture Mastery! Effective May 1, 2015, our company, formerly known as Höferle Consulting, will serve our clients as a revamped business entity: We are now The Culture Mastery, LLC. After more than six years in business our company has evolved. And so have our customers. Initially, Höferle Consulting was established to serve mainly clients from North America and …