Reflections of a TCK mum – will I ever know if I have done the right thing?
I am far from being a Third Culture Kid. I was born and raised in the same town in the Netherlands, in the same house even. I left that house when I was 18 and my Dutch parents continued living there for another 25 years. When I go back to my hometown, I feel that I...
11. Reflecting on six years living and working in Taiwan
I always think of my time in Taiwan with a smile on my face. It was our first overseas posting and definitely a very good one. I knew very little about Taiwan before we went. It turned out I wasn’t the only one. Many conversations with friends and acquaintances went...
10. I made a quick sidestep to land the next perfect job
My son was one year old and I had just left my job, that required me to travel frequently, for a role in a local Taiwanese HR consulting firm. I was hired as the only non-Taiwanese in an office of about 80 staff and my job was to penetrate the foreign business...
International Women’s Day 2021 #ChooseToChallenge
I am on a mission and have been for most of my working life
My life’s mission is to take away barriers and offer support so that women can develop themselves, follow their ambitions and create the lives for themselves that they aspire to. I am currently working with expat partners, usually women, who give up their jobs to...
9. How becoming a mother changed my view on work
We had been in Taipei for two years and I was working as Regional HR manager for one of the Big Four professional services firms. My British boss, Jim, was unpredictable and could be hugely unpleasant but as he was traveling 95% of the time, it was bearable and I was...
8. Is there ever a good time for a career woman to fall pregnant?
Is there ever a good time to fall pregnant when you are a career-minded woman? I had seen several of my friends, when I still lived back home in the Netherlands, become pregnant, have babies and go back to work. Their stories were not very encouraging. The struggle...
7. I was the ‘blue-eyed girl’, if only for a short while
I had landed on my feet. After about seven months in the local Taipei office of one of the Big Four accounting firms, working in a complete Taiwanese environment without speaking the language, I had moved on to the Asia Pacific Regional office in the role of Regional...