Below you will find a selection of the most recent entries from bloggers in our Work/Business section.
To view the entries from individual bloggers, click on the links below:
- Claire Doole - Claire Doole Communications
Claire is a former BBC correspondent and international spokeswoman who is passionate about helping people communicate with confidence. Since 2006, she has successfully trained hundreds of professionals in the art of presenting and public speaking, talking to the media, managing communications in a crisis, and writing for the web. In addition, she has coached C-level executives and public figures to give powerful TEDx and TED style talks in Europe and the Middle East. A Swiss and UK national, Claire trains and coaches in French and English.
- Elizabeth Ballin - Life Coach
As a long time member of the international community in Geneva, Elizabeth Ballin has been coaching adults and students from all parts of the world. She has coached business professionals, musicians/artists, couples, families and adolescents. She is a fully accredited Life Coach by the International Coaching Federation. Elizabeth Ballin, Life Coach
- Patrick Hoza - US Tax & Financial Services
Since 1990, Patrick has many years of experience with US individual expatriate taxation under his belt, including High Net Worth Individuals, streamline/voluntary disclosure filings and tax consulting, as well as working with large multinationals like Novartis, BP, Hewlett Packard and General Electric. He has extensive knowledge in serving both US expatriates and resident and non-resident aliens with their US tax-related issues. Patrick Hoza is a Tax Director at US Tax & Financial Services, with extensive experience in all aspects of Individual US tax and Expatriation, including Hight Net Worth Individuals and large multinationals.
Patrick started his career in 1990 in California, with Westpro Ltd., as a Senior Tax Consultant, then spent the middle part of his career working at KPMG and Ernst & Young. During his time with Ernst & Young, he worked and lived in Russia, France and finally Switzerland. He has gained a valuable working knowledge of the respective income tax regulations in all of these countries.
Patrick holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Colorado, is a member of the National Association of Enrolled Agents and is a Certified Acceptance Agent.
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Melitta Campbell - Business Coach
Business Coach and Mentor with nearly 3 decades of business experience and a passion for helping women confidently build a business they love. She is also the founder of the Swiss Entrepreneurs Club and president of the Swiss Riviera Toastmasters Club in Montreux. Originally from Wales, she now lives in Montreux in a chalet she has renovated with her husband overlooking the Swiss Alps. - Sunita Sehmi - Walk The Talk
Founder of Walk The Talk, Sunita has been training, developing and now coaching Business Communication skills in both companies and educational establishments for over twenty years. She has a passion for helping people to maximise their potential and created Walk The Talk with the sole aim to drive each and every client to perform their best.
- Robert Harris- Forth Capital
With over 25 years experience working for some of the major financial institutions in the City of London, Robert is a founding partner of Forth Capital, the leading expat financial advisory company in Switzerland. Regulary quoted in newspaper articles and magazines, he is well placed to advise expats on a variety of financial issues that may arise during their time living in Switzerland.
- Debbie Croft - Croft Coaching
As the founder of Croft Coaching, Debbie has a passion for helping people overcome challenges, embrace change and live life to the full; with an ethos of “work hard, play hard”.
- Sarah Santacroce - Simplicity
A certified social media, internet marketing, and virtual event specialist, Sarah enjoys every aspect of small business marketing. Through her own business, Simplicity, it is her mission to help other small businesses and solopreneurs increase their visibility and use social media tools as part of their marketing strategy.
- Diana Ritchie - SSC Sàrl
A Director at Swiss Career Connections, Diana will provide you with some useful tips for job hunting.
By Claire Doole, Claire Doole Communications
My colleague, Jean Milligan, and myself, have just come back from Bangladesh where we were handling the local media for an event organised by one of Geneva’s international organisations.
For the organisation’s President, who is himself from Bangladesh, it was an opportunity to show that his country was open for business, able to successfully organise an international conference attended by more than 1200 people from 126 countries.
As this was the first international conference in Bangladesh for decades, there was a massive local press corps following the proceedings in great detail. Several national TV channels even broadcast the press conferences live.
I realised during my stint there that it is not easy to parachute into a complex local media environment, and manage the challenges and opportunities that arise. Looking back on my experience in Bangladesh and in numerous other places, I have come up with some tips on managing local media in an unfamiliar context.
The first thing to keep in mind is that many local media work to the highest professional standards. You may find that doing an interview with them requires much more knowledge than with the international media. However, do be aware of the constraints that some of them work under.
By Audrey Flynn, Forth Capital
Planning for your retirement can often be a very complex process and for many it is very important to seek expert advice. Retirement Planning is crucial, with life expectancy increasing and the birth rate in the west falling, and now is the time to plan for your future. Most governments can no longer guarantee funding of their citizens’ retirement and, as a consequence, they are regularly increasing retirement age and finding ways to heavily tax pension withdrawals. As healthcare and lifestyles improve, people are living longer meaning that lucrative final salary pension schemes have become too expensive for most companies to fund.
The process of retirement planning is relatively straightforward in principal. Ideally, you want to make sure that you have enough income and assets to live the lifestyle that you want. What makes retirement planning more difficult is determining how that lifestyle should be and what it will cost you. Then there is the challenge of dealing with the many variables that go into the process and the pace at which they change, specifically knowing if and when you can retire.
On 9 May Forth Capital are hosting a seminar in Geneva on Low-Cost Investment Strategies for International Investors.
Actively managed UK equity funds on average delivered a return of 11.2 per cent last year, just under 6 percentage points lower than the 17.1 per cent return enjoyed by the UK equity index calculated by S&P. In the same period our Forth Capital Next Generation Morningstar Growth Fund delivered 28.5 return.
If you haven’t made the move to passive strategies – do it now. Forth Capital have created five strategies exclusively for our clients that are highly suited for Retirement Savers, and we have already created nearly 10 million GBP in profit for our clients in the last 12 months. This seminar is an ideal opportunity for English speakers in Geneva and frontaliers to learn more about this opportunity.
By Sunita Sehmi, Walk The Talk
Pinky Lilani CBE DL was born in Calcutta and came to the UK after her marriage.
She is the founder and chairman of ’The Asian Women of Achievement Awards’, ‘The Women of the Future Award’, ‘The Ambassadors’ Programme’ and ‘The Global Empowerment Award’.
As the Founder and Chairman of the annual Asian Women of Achievement Awards, Pinky’s accolades have celebrated the tremendous contribution of Asian women to British business and public life for the past 18 years! Pinky is also the creator of the Women of the Future portfolio - Britain’s most exciting programme for successful young women. It is Pinky’s vision that through these initiatives, women can help each other through building relationships and nurturing the talents of the next generation.
Pinky’s other business, Spice Magic, involves cookery lessons as part of corporate team building. She discovered a passion and soon published a cookbook, Spice Magic, which endeavours to decipher the intricacy of Indian food. Furthermore, Pinky holds cookery classes, she has also consulted for brands such as Sharwood’s and contributes to the development of sauces for Tesco and other supermarkets. From her self-taught experience, the creation of her book and her much-loved cookery demos she built her company 'Spice Magic’.
By Alan Turner, Forth Capital
The Government has, once again, avoided calls from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Frozen British Pensions to rule out freezing pensions for EU-resident British expats after Brexit.
When challenged to clarity their position in the Lords, Baroness Mobarik, a Government spokesperson in the Lords, said that she was not able to give the noble Baroness any more guarantee than she has already.
All she had previously said in the debate was that freezing state pensions overseas is a long-standing policy of successive Governments which has been the case for almost 70 years and there are no plans to change the policy.
The policy that she references causes pensioners in Australia, Canada and many other locations to see their state pension value frozen from the time they left the UK and they do not benefit from any increases made since.
By Claire Doole, Claire Doole Communications
There can’t be many subjects that provoke more heated debate than the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. So when the founder of the Geneva Human Rights Film Festival (http://www.fifdh.org/site/en/home) asked me to moderate a debate on the subject last week, I knew I had my work cut out.
As a former BBC journalist, I follow current affairs but I am not a subject expert. Yet at the Festival I would have a room full of subject experts. There are large Jewish and Arab communities in Geneva and many organisations that work towards ending the conflict.
Preparation was crucial if I was not to make a diplomatic faux pas and do justice to the speakers: Israeli professor and peace activist, Daniel Bar-Tal, founder of Stop Israel Save the Occupation (http://www.siso.org.il) and Palestinian peace activist, Ali Abu Awwad, founder of the Tarir/Change Movement and Roots initiative (http://www.friendsofroots.net/the-people.html).
