In this pod I talk to Professor Karen Willcox, a world leader in computational engineering and Director of the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering & Sciences at the University of Texas.

Karen grew up in a modest household with parents who didn’t finish high school. She was the first person in her extended family to attend university, studying engineering at the University of Auckland while working 27-hour weeks at McDonald’s to pay her way.

From there, she left Aotearoa New Zealand for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she completed her PhD in Aeronautics & Astronautics. She went on to spend 17 years as a professor at MIT before moving to Texas to lead the Oden Institute, an interdisciplinary research institute bringing together computing, mathematics, science, engineering, and medicine to help model, simulate, and solve some of the world’s most complex problems.

Our conversation tracks Karen’s journey from a girl watching Star Wars who dreamed of becoming an astronaut, but wasn’t encouraged into traditionally male worlds of mechanics, racing, engineering, or flight, to nearly becoming the first Kiwi in space.

We talk about the teachers who saw her potential, playing women’s rugby in the US, her year at Boeing, and the mentors who helped shape her path. Karen also reflects on mentoring others, the persistent lack of women in aerospace engineering, and why opening doors for the next generation has become such an important part of her work.

In 2017, Karen was made a MNZM for services to aerospace engineering & education. She was later elected to the US National Academy of Engineering, one of the highest professional honours an engineer can receive.

This is a conversation about class, gender, science, ambition, disappointment, achievement, flight, and what can happen when a young Kiwi is told certain worlds are not for her, but keeps looking to the skies.

A huge thanks to Karen for joining me on Kiwi Flees.

On behalf of OFNZ, thank you for listening and sharing the pod.

My huge thanks to the Kiwi Flees for candid conversations, and to my sound engineer Robbie Mulligan and the team at Matrix Digital (Wgtn).

Thank you, too, to Kea for promoting the pod.

If you're a Kiwi Flee or know someone who should be, please get in touch at: [email protected]

Please subscribe, leave a review, and join me in a fortnight for our next episode. 

In this episode, I catch up with Nazeel Juvale, CEO of Al Ain FC - one of Asia’s biggest football clubs - and a rare New Zealander who has reached senior leadership at the elite level of the global game.

Now living in the United Arab Emirates, Nazeel left Aotearoa New Zealand in 2012 after roles with Deloitte and the ANZ. 

 His career since has spanned infrastructure, tourism, entertainment, private investment, global sport, and now professional football – with the past 12 months including matches against Manchester City and Juventus at the FIFA Club World Cup, as well as a title-winning season in which Al Ain became the UAE Pro League’s first-ever ‘Invincible’ champions.

 For a Kiwi who grew up waking at 3am to watch Barcelona from New Zealand, it’s not a bad place to end up.

 Our conversation tracks Nazeel’s life through travel, sport, identity, and ambition. His father was a ship’s captain, which led to a unique series of family holidays on the high seas, while his mother still works as a travel agent in New Zealand. Nazeel has now visited more than 100 countries, giving him a perspective shaped by India, New Zealand, the UAE, and a very large chunk of the rest of the world.

 We talk about the back surgery at 19 that ended his first sporting love, cricket, and how football became one of the great organising passions of his life. Nazeel shares his World Cup memories from 1994 to today, and how he once found himself with a free ticket to the 2015 Champions League Final.

We also get into the business of football, fan culture, representing New Zealand offshore, and what Aotearoa might learn from the UAE’s ambition, long-term planning, and execution in becoming a globally competitive tourist destination.

A huge thanks to Nazeel for joining me on Kiwi Flees.

On behalf of OFNZ, thank you for listening and sharing the pod.

My huge thanks to the Kiwi Flees for candid conversations, and to my sound engineer Robbie Mulligan and the team at Matrix Digital (Wgtn).

Thank you, too, to Kea for promoting the pod.

If you're a Kiwi Flee or know someone who should be, please get in touch at: [email protected]

Please subscribe, leave a review, and join me in a fortnight for our next episode. 

This pod sees me catching up with Lausanne-based Marc Checkley, an Auckland-born writer, host, actor, communications consultant, educator, & WSET-certified wine professional.

Marc first left Aotearoa New Zealand in 2000, swapping Papatoetoe for Singapore to work in media education, digital arts, and filmmaking. Since then, his creative life has taken him across Asia and Europe - from newsrooms, studios, and senior television roles, to Olympic Games broadcasting in Beijing, work connected with the legendary Jim Henson, and now Switzerland, where wine, hospitality, tourism, and storytelling have become the next expression of his craft.

Our conversation follows Marc through international media, online wine education, and the UNESCO-listed vineyards of Lavaux above Lake Geneva, where he now guides international wine lovers.

It’s also a conversation about belonging — and its shadow, not belonging.

Marc met and married his husband, Jin, offshore, building a life across countries that did not recognise their relationship equally.

We also talk about the Kiwi stories we carry with us: “she’ll be right”, “the smell of an oily rag”, and our sometimes-too-casual way of moving through the world. Marc makes a compelling case that words and stories matter, and that perhaps New Zealanders could stand to revisit some of the things we keep telling ourselves about ourselves.

A huge thanks to Marc for his candour, energy, & generosity. This was a rich, funny, thoughtful, and at times provocative conversation with another Kiwi Flee doing fascinating work in the world.

Further details on Marc

Marc Checkley has worked across Asia and Europe with major media, tourism, hospitality, and commercial brands, and now helps organisations, destinations, and individuals tell better stories.

Alongside his storytelling and consulting work, Marc hosts bespoke wine experiences, judges at international wine competitions, writes for publications including GaultMillau, Time Out, and Decanter, and is an adjunct lecturer at Les Roches Hospitality Management School. He is also a UNESCO World Heritage Guide in Lavaux, co-author of The Smart Traveller’s Wine Guide to Switzerland, and a finalist in the 67 Pall Mall Global Wine Communicator Awards 2026.

You can find Marc here:

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/spillthestory
Email: [email protected]
Wine Experiences: @drink.moi

On behalf of OFNZ, thank you for listening and sharing the pod.

My huge thanks to the Kiwi Flees for candid conversations, and to my sound engineer Robbie Mulligan and the team at Matrix Digital (Wgtn).

Thank you, too, to Kea for promoting the pod.

If you're a Kiwi Flee or know someone who should be, please get in touch at: [email protected]

Please subscribe, leave a review, and join me in a fortnight for our next episode. 

In this episode of Kiwi Flees I talk to Toronto-based financier, Darren Sissons, who left Aotearoa New Zealand in 1993, heading to Taiwan with $1,500 in his pocket.

Darren spent five years there learning Mandarin, working in a trading company focused on export markets, and doing the sort of long-week, high-pressure apprenticeship that helped shape the resilience and perspective he's carried through the rest of his life.

Since leaving New Zealand, Darren has also lived and worked in the UK before settling in Canada. He’s held senior roles at Portfolio Management Corp, Scotiabank, Scotiabank Private Equity, Osprey Capital, and RBC and is now Partner & Portfolio Manager, Global Equities, at Campbell, Lee & Ross Investment Management. His career has spanned venture capital, private equity, public equities, derivatives, mergers & acquisitions, restructuring, financing, strategy, and high-net-worth wealth management.

Darren talks about the experience of becoming an amalgam of different national, cultural, and business environments, and what it feels like to return to NZ when some people still see you as the person who left, back in the day. We explore what he calls “paradise lost” - the emotional cost some offshore Kiwis carry through absence from home - and also look at New Zealand through Darren’s global investment lens. This includes our relationship with housing, capital, sovereign wealth, education, and ambition.

I found Darren's view on foundation structures - think Denmark's iconic Carlsberg brand - fascinating. These structures can see a foundation hold a controlling stake in a company of national significance, helping keep strategically important businesses from simply being sold offshore to well-heeled bidders.

Darren has spent much of his career assessing whether companies, people, strategies, incentives, and numbers stack up. That makes for a candid conversation about New Zealand, the diaspora, and what small countries need to get right if they want to compete.

A huge thanks to Darren for joining me on Kiwi Flees. You can find him on LinkedIn here and the book recommendation made during the pod was Banker to the Poor by Muhammad Yunus.

On behalf of OFNZ, thank you for listening and sharing the pod.

My huge thanks to the Kiwi Flees for candid conversations, and to my sound engineer Robbie Mulligan and the team at Matrix Digital (Wgtn).

Thank you, too, to Kea for promoting the pod.

If you're a Kiwi Flee or know someone who should be, please get in touch at: [email protected]

Please subscribe, leave a review, and join me in a fortnight for our next episode. 

Rather than catching up with an offshore Kiwi Flee, for episode 15 I invited a former colleague and now friend, Sam Prescott, to take over the hosting duties, helping me unpick what I’ve seen, heard, and learned since launching the pod.

This was a high-risk moment for me. Sam's a Co-Director of communications consultancy Sixteenth Letter and one of the sharper tacks in the toolbox. He's a successful and seasoned communications professional, a writer (do check out his Slow Comms newsletter on Substack), editor, and former video games journo. And as you’ll hear from his opening gambit, he enjoys giving me a push by ambushing me with a great question straight out of the gate. I should have seen it coming!

So far, Kiwi Flees has connected with Kiwis in England, Wales, Cyprus, Japan, the US, Poland, France, Italy, and one just off the high seas. They’ve included an actor, writers, a sports leader, an academic, a lawyer, a podcaster, a trade facilitator, a songwriter, a sailor, a publisher, a photographer, an innovation guru, a film industry veteran, a franchise owner, and a social enterprise creator.

Across those conversations, some themes have started to emerge. This episode explores them.

This is neither a greatest hits episode nor a glossy success parade. It’s more of a pause at the halfway-ish mark to ask what Kiwi Flees might really be about.

My thanks to Sam for joining me and asking sharp questions - for which he mostly had better answers than me - and for letting me think aloud about the valuable and valued tribe that has exported itself from Aotearoa New Zealand. 

Please join me in a fortnight when normal service resumes.

On behalf of OFNZ, thank you for listening and sharing the pod.

My huge thanks to the Kiwi Flees for candid conversations, and to my sound engineer Robbie Mulligan and the team at Matrix Digital (Wgtn).

Thank you, too, to Kea for promoting the pod.

If you're a Kiwi Flee or know someone who should be, please get in touch at: [email protected]

Please subscribe, leave a review, and join me in a fortnight for our next episode. 

In this pod I talk to UK-based Kiwi Flee and entrepreneur, Melisa White, whose life outside New Zealand has cut across Denmark, Singapore, and the UK, and across a remarkable range of work: from finance to recruitment, technology sales to corporate sales, performance coaching to behavioural science, mindset training and housing advocacy.

Melisa, who joined me from Cardiff, Wales, describes herself as a mixed Kiwi - having a Kiwi Dad and a Singaporean Mum. Despite admitting she wasn't that great at school and not graduating from university, Melisa got into Mensa at 24 and went on to become a top performer in several high-pressure corporate environments.

We talk about what it means to be great at the work, but not always an easy fit for the box around it. One former manager told Melisa she was one of the best salespeople he’d worked with, but “a nightmare to manage”. Her response - one she likely wouldn't use today - referenced Corollas and Ferraris to silence the criticism.

Our conversation tracks Melisa’s move to Singapore; a period of running at 150%, making good money and living hard; and the point at which she began to realise that speed, money, and performance are not the same thing as being well.

We discuss trauma therapy, silent meditation, self-awareness, and a personal and professional journey that eventually led Melisa away from corporate "ego-land” and towards helping leaseholders and residents in the UK housing system who are often left navigating unfairness, complexity, stress, and power imbalance on their own.

At the heart of the episode is Melisa’s current venture, KindStay, which she describes as the culmination of much of her life and career: sales, systems, trauma, performance, self-awareness, and a belief that old-school industries can be disrupted by paying far more attention to human beings.

This is a brave conversation about intensity, ambition, sexism, burnout, resilience, and reinvention - and the power of turning hard-won self-knowledge into something that helps other people and organisations navigate uncertainty.

A huge thanks to Melisa for joining me on Kiwi Flees and for sharing this candid and very human story.

On behalf of OFNZ, thank you for listening and sharing the pod.

My huge thanks to the Kiwi Flees for candid conversations, and to my sound engineer Robbie Mulligan and the team at Matrix Digital (Wgtn).

Thank you, too, to Kea for promoting the pod.

If you're a Kiwi Flee or know someone who should be, please get in touch at: [email protected]

Please subscribe, leave a review, and join me in a fortnight for our next episode. 

In today's pod I catch up with the London-based internationally award-winning VFX guru and Producer, Johnny Blick. This pod is a little different to previous episodes as Johnny was keen to mix the conversation up - not wanting to just focus on what he's been doing offshore (perhaps the bogie of imposter syndrome raising its pernicious head again) but also to look at why so many Kiwis excel internationally. We touch on both the upsides and downsides of forging a  career and life outside of Aotearoa New Zealand.

Johnny first left NZ with his family in 1986, swapping Wellywood for Hollywood where he lived with his family in a house whose history stretched from Marilyn Munroe to David Bowie. 

We discuss the contrast of Johnny's move from St Pats – a single sex Catholic boys’ school in Wellington, to the co-ed Beverly Hills High - alma mater to names like Nicolas Cage, David Schwimmer, & Angelina Jolie. Johnny suddenly found himself surrounded by students wanting to succeed, and with peers who expected him to want the same.

This expectation saw him auditioning and securing a place in the auspicious University of Southern California whose alumni include Will Ferrell, George Lucas, Ron Howard, and America Ferrera among others. 

We briefly discuss Johnny's return to New Zealand to work first as an actor, before making a clean move into the world of film and television commercial production. Our conversation cuts between his stellar career - he's now the Managing Partner of VFX studio Gate+ - and the life of a Kiwi who has put down deep commercial and familial roots offshore. We discuss some of the traits and attitudes that hold Kiwis in good stead internationally and I loved Johnny's candid appraisal of what he sees as the opportunities for Kiwis abroad, along with some of the things he misses most about Aotearoa New Zealand.

A huge thanks to Johnny for joining me on the pod. Slay the dragon of imposter syndrome!

On behalf of OFNZ, thank you for listening and sharing the pod.

My huge thanks to the Kiwi Flees for candid conversations, and to my sound engineer Robbie Mulligan and the team at Matrix Digital (Wgtn).

Thank you, too, to Kea for promoting the pod.

If you're a Kiwi Flee or know someone who should be, please get in touch at: [email protected]

Please subscribe, leave a review, and join me in a fortnight for our next episode. 

In this pod I catch up with Kelly Rolleston (Ngā Rauru & Ngāti Ruanui) who joins me from his family's home in Piacenza, located in northern Italy, about 70km from Milan.

Kelly whakapapas to Taranaki iwi and on his father’s side, his grandmother - Hinemoerangi Tumaroroa - was the granddaughter of the Māori spiritual and political leader Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana, founder of the Rātana movement.

A hard-running rugby fullback who played for the Wellington Lions from 1992 to 1996, Kelly left New Zealand in' 96 and went on to play professionally in Italy and France. We look at the origins of Kelly's love of sport & physical activity which he gratefully acknowledges was largely orchestrated by his Mum, determined that her son have strong and positive roles models after Kelly's Dad died when Kelly was just two years old.

We touch on Kelly's lifelong love of sport, his pro athlete and then coaching career, the 'sliding door' moments that led to his career path taking the direction that it did, and his reflections on hitting that existential moment of asking 'what do I actually want to do with my life?'. Our conversation tracks across the vital role of sport and physical activity for keeping healthy and happy, Kelly's non-negotiable mantra that sport should be fun, and his work now as Italy's Master Franchisee of Little Kickers - an international franchise introducing football and the benefits of sport & physical activity to a legion of youngsters across his adopted country. Lastly we touch on identity and culture, with Kelly talking about the values at the heart of everything he does now, and his family living proudly across three cultures – Māori, Pākehā, and Italian.

A huge thanks to Kelly for joining me on Kiwi Flees. He is yet another awesome Kiwi doing it his way, and impacting positively on the world. 

Kelly's contact details include: LinkedIn; email [email protected]; or click here for Little Kickers (Italy) franchising info.

On behalf of OFNZ, thank you for listening and sharing the pod.

My huge thanks to the Kiwi Flees for candid conversations, and to my sound engineer Robbie Mulligan and the team at Matrix Digital (Wgtn).

Thank you, too, to Kea for promoting the pod.

If you're a Kiwi Flee or know someone who should be, please get in touch at: [email protected]

Please subscribe, leave a review, and join me in a fortnight for our next episode. 

In this pod I talk to Tauranga-raised, France-based innovation guru, wildlife photographer, and wildlife photography tour guide, Francine Stevens, about her life since leaving New Zealand in 2007. 

Our conversation tracks Francine's career from leading digital innovation teams with a multinational corporation, to eventually working with start-ups, and in a B Corp in the UK, before escaping Britain just before a Covid lockdown to work in NEOM, one of Saudi Arabia's many ambitious giga-projects. 

Francine's personal and professional journey took a twist in the trail when, in 2020, she committed to five years of training, with the goal of one day working professionally as a wildlife photographer. I first met Francine in late 2025 while she was scoping out destinations in NZ for a small-group photography tour with UK-based clients looking to head Down Under. This was just before she headed well north to photograph Arctic Foxes!

In the pod we also touch on why she didn't pursue a career in opera, how companies with 60,000 staff innovate, and the ethical call of the wild I suspect all wildlife photographers have to answer; namely whether getting 'the shot' is prioritised over the wildlife, or vice versa. Francine shares her observations - positive - on volunteerism and NZ's conservation successes thanks to incremental changes over time delivering major environmental gains for NZ habitats & wildlife.

This was yet another inspirational and uplifting conversation with a Kiwi Flee. My huge thanks to Francine for joining me on the pod. It's not hard to see how, yet again, a commercial & creative member of our diaspora is lifting and promoting our country's profile internationally. 

Please check out Francine's work: Instagram.com/fstevens_artist/ and francinestevens.com

On behalf of OFNZ, thank you for listening and sharing the pod.

My huge thanks to the Kiwi Flees for candid conversations, and to my sound engineer Robbie Mulligan and the team at Matrix Digital (Wgtn).

Thank you, too, to Kea for promoting the pod.

If you're a Kiwi Flee or know someone who should be, please get in touch at: [email protected]

Please subscribe, leave a review, and join me in a fortnight for our next episode. 

In this pod I talk to a Kiwi-born rainmaker, risk-taker, & entrepreneur, Santa Barbara-based Gia Levé, who, at 60, walked away from the life she'd built to embark on what she calls her Legacy Lap - aka the Heroine's Journey.

After landing in the United States in 1980, Gia built a successful career in communications & sales before co-founding an award-winning publishing company, Dream Spaces. At 60, following the death of her father, she spent two years trying to answer the challenge posed by three little words which can hit many of us at a key inflexion point in life - "Is This It"?

As Gia tells it, she landed on a resounding 'no', deciding to walk away from ‘playing it safe’ – her words, not mine – leaving her corporate life. Then, with no prior musical training, Gia reinvented herself as a charting singer-songwriter, a keynote concert speaker, and reinvention mentor.

In the pod, Gia shares her journey to reinvention and we touch on common Kiwi values of humility, belonging, and not “making a fuss" and how these don't always translate internationally. She describes how Californian culture challenged her Kiwi 'wiring' which meant standing out, dropping self-deprecation, and refusing to stand small.

Gia now steps onto the literal stage as both a speaker and recording artist, especially inspiring women entering new chapters of their lives, demonstrating that it's never too late to claim your voice.

For more on Gia, head to gialeve.com, gialevekeynote.com, or go to www.uniquespeakerbureauint.com/speakers/gia-leve to book Gia for your next event.

On behalf of OFNZ, thank you for listening and sharing the pod.

My huge thanks to the Kiwi Flees for candid conversations, and to my sound engineer Robbie Mulligan and the team at Matrix Digital (Wgtn).

Thank you, too, to Kea for promoting the pod.

If you're a Kiwi Flee or know someone who should be, please get in touch at: [email protected]

Please subscribe, leave a review, and join me in a fortnight for our next episode.