Group sees business benefits in NZ brain drain

New Zealanders working abroad may not be beating a path to return home, but rather than bemoaning the "brain drain" an expatriate association is seizing the business opportunity it provides.

The association, Kea, will launch a website this month to help local companies tap into its membership base to establish commercial or professional contacts in global markets.

New Kea managing director Ross McConnell said although 500,000 New Zealanders were putting their talents to use in other countries, the international market knowledge and expertise they gained meant they were among the best placed to give local companies a helping hand with their initiatives.

Rather than an online community exclusively for expats, Kea would now work like a global alumni network - linking the skills, knowledge and opportunities that lay with its 5000 members to New Zealand, he said.

Small and early-stage businesses are among those it wants to target. The network could help them to find someone in their target export market who could provide intelligence, organise introductions and then work alongside them to smooth their entry into the market.

Businesses could also explore opportunities for joint ventures, distribution partnerships or offshore representation through the website.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade estimates 500,000 New Zealanders, or 14 per cent of the population, may be living overseas. However, other estimates range up to 1 million.

With 25 per cent of university graduates working offshore, New Zealand ranks among the highest in OECD countries when it comes to the number of skilled citizens living abroad.

Although it was often greater career opportunities keeping them away, McConnell said many expats were keen to engage with what was going on here and to make the knowledge they gathered offshore available to local businesses and New Zealand's economy in general.

"They don't want to be told they should be at home, but really respond to the fact we are saying, 'Hey, you can play a part and be involved, regardless of where you are'."

It was likely some of those people would be more valuable in terms of the doors they could open offshore than if they were employed locally, he said.

A former expat himself, McConnell got interested in Kea when he was tutored by its chairman, David Teese, while completing an MBA in San Francisco.

He took the Kea job this year after five years abroad. Previous jobs included project manager with Fletcher Challenge and a construction project manager's role in Britain.

Although Kea had been good at bringing expats together, it needed to go another step and connect the network back to New Zealand, said McConnell.

"The previous system relied too much on my Rolodex and the Rolodex of the people running our branches offshore. I realised I was the bottleneck."

Since Kea was formed in 2002 by Teese, Stephen Tindall and George Barker, its membership has grown to more than 5000 in 70 countries.

It has active groups in Sydney, Britain, the Netherlands, Boston, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and new groups forming in the Middle East, Seattle, Germany and potentially Shanghai.