Flat White London 008

Most New Zealanders in London still call New Zealand home, regardless of whether they’ve been here for two years or ten years, whether they’re going home next week or if they’re never going home at all. We’re not really expats. With that comes this desire to make New Zealand great, the kind of place where we all grew up and want to go back to. So this Flat White is going to be a little different. Instead of two founder stories, we’re running a conversation.

On one side, Hon. Todd McClay. NZ’s Minister for Trade and Investment (along with a handful of others), here to celebrate the third anniversary of the NZ-UK Free Trade Agreement. In the last 18 months he’s also closed major trade deals with the UAE, the GCC and India. His job, right now, is to grow trade into NZ and bring foreign capital home. On the other side, two founders who’ve built and sold businesses, and chosen, for now, to base themselves here.

Sarah Smart most recently led the sale of The Collective Dairy as CEO, and has been named one of the most powerful women in dairy as well as an NZTE beachhead advisor

Hardy Michel is the Co-Founder of Marloo, the AI assistant taking paperwork out of financial advice. Fresh from Sharesies, he’s built Marloo into one of NZ’s fastest growing fintech startups fresh of a $10m Seed round. The conversation we want to have: what do Kiwis over here actually need to see from New Zealand? What would bring them home? And how does NZ turn its diaspora into one of its biggest competitive advantages?