Deborah Valentine for Fabulous after Fifty! podcast
Relocation: Excitement, adventure, but also worry and fear and having to recreate a whole world from scratch again… Join me as I speak with the fabulous Deborah Valentine, global mobility expert, a guiding hand in managing relocation, executive director of ACCESS in the NL, supporting the successful relocation of internationals to the Netherlands for more than 30 years as we discuss whether it gets easier with age and what we can do to make it a success.

Deborah Valentine is a Canadian, born in Germany who has lived the proverbial expatriate lifestyle. She is a bona fide TCK (Third Culture Kid): her parents are from Canada and Jamaica; she lived in three countries before the age of 6 – and since then, relocated every four years …until she ‘hit’ Holland. Since 2003 she has been in one place – but not ‘stayed put’. Alter 11 relocations; five languages and experiences as ‘child of’ as well as ‘spouse of’, ‘mother of’ not to mention expat professional herself with the UN, she more than understands what it is to live and work in other countries.
Among the lessons she has learnt in this life-long journey, Deborah is convinced that ‘networking’ led to her success in having relocated so many times, and that it has been the key to meeting the challenge of ‘settling’. She has also learned that for some it is second nature, for others, not; that what is done, expected in one country may be quite different in another. And, that women network in their own way.
Deborah has travelled many international and ‘career’ paths, and more recently, has travelled a local international one, adapting her skills to the challenges at hand, and helping others make the adjustments to relocating to the Netherlands.

link to ACCESS website, www.access-nl.org and Patron programme (for employers, those hiring/working with internationals)
https://access-nl.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/021-05_ACCESS_Patron_Programme_2021_HD_FINAL.pdf
For those, not moving to NL would suggest and recommend www.figt.org

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