Coming home doesn't mean compromise for high-flyer

Founder and creative director of Chalk Designstudio, Monika Conway, at her office in Ponsonby. Picture / Dean Purcell

The desire for more time off was one reason that drove industrial designer Monika Conway back to New Zealand after eight years in the United States.

She loved her work with two of the country's biggest design companies - one of them IDEO, the creator of the the first laptop computer and the squishy toothbrush handle - but the pace was punishing.

"It was all work ... Here we have that freedom, we have that escape," says Ms Conway, 30.

She was also ready for a new challenge - in the shape of Chalk Designstudio, which she set up on Auckland's Ponsonby Rd after her return 18 months ago.

But leaving the US didn't spell compromise: "I'm not isolated here - I've got lots of connections and friends and colleagues [in the US] I'm in touch with every day," says Ms Conway. "I don't feel like I'm 'back here', just that I'm based here."

Ms Conway has been a member of the Kiwi Expat Association since its post-Knowledge Wave beginnings in 2001 - it now claims 4000 members in 70 countries. Blatant pressure to come home doesn't work, she says. But the right tools might help make the decision-making.

Prime Minister Helen Clark and Immigration Minister Paul Swain used Ms Conway's office to yesterday launch a come-home-Kiwi toolkit.

However, the initiative is short on details - and the promise of a roll-out in November makes it a distinctly election-shaped carrot.

Too little, too late? No, says Mr Swain. But Australia has started beckoning migrants aggressively: "If we're not engaged with [ex-pats], they are going to be pinched away from us."