About Me — Wendela Elsen

Hello, my name is Wendela Elsen. I am originally from the Netherlands but I left my country in 1997 and have lived abroad ever since. I work as an expat parter coach and I help them find meaningful and fulfilling ways of using their professional skills and experiences, be it in paid work or otherwise.

Growing up

I grew up in a village very close to The Hague. Shell headquarters was based in The Hague and many Shell employees and their families lived in my village. Several Shell children attended my school. These children had lived all over the world because one of their parents was sent out by the company to run a Shell office in Venezuela, Indonesia, the Middle East to name a few. These children found it completely normal to have lived in all these places. They also spoke English fluently because they had attended international schools. How cool was that! I was in awe.

My parents were born and raised in the Netherlands and had no particular interest in traveling. My mother had her own practice as a child psychologist and my father was a civil servant. He did travel for work, mainly to the Dutch overseas territories, but our holidays were usually local.

I was the youngest of five and we were an unusually large family in our area. Both my parents experienced WWII as teenagers and were raised to be careful with money. With the five children and my parents’ upbringing we had everything we needed but no unnecessary luxuries, like holidays abroad. My parents thought that a more economical solution for a large family was to buy a yacht. The Netherlands is small but there is lots of water and every holiday we explored another part of the country by boat.

Fast forward, I am now in my late twenties, and I meet this man, who would become my husband, in a pub. His very first question was: “Would you ever want to live abroad?”. “Yes”, I responded before thinking, “especially in the Far East”.

Where did that come from?

A couple of years later, we packed up our house and moved to Taiwan for his company, Philips and I have been abroad ever since.

First Taiwan

We lived in Taiwan for six years. I was a career woman and managed to continue my career in HR there. Finding a job overseas is not easy but I was determined. I didn’t see myself as a “trailing spouse”. I was too young and too ambitious. I found my job through networking and perseverance. The first job was definitely not perfect but it was a foot in the door and it led to the perfect job, only a few months later. I have written several blogs here on Medium about my experiences of finding a job and working in Taiwan.

I had my three children in Taiwan. First my son and two years later my twin girls. It was tough to raise three children so close in age but, fortunately, it was possible in Taiwan to hire a live-in helper. Because of this, I could continue my career, although I reduced my working hours to spend more time with my children.

I met many expat spouses in those days who were highly educated but were not working. They often wanted to work, but they didn’t know how to find a fitting role and decided to be a stay at home wife and mother. I didn't think much of it at the time. Each their own choice, I thought.

Next Japan

After six years we moved to Japan. I didn’t know anyone, I had no network and I had three very young children. I knew that working hours in Japan were crazy and in the first year I focused on my children. It was tough and I really suffered from my loss of professional identity. After one year I was so frustrated, angry and mentally bored that I started my hunt for a job again. It was tough. In a country where they don’t know what working part-time means and where they are not particularly interested in foreigners, it was hard to know where to start. Again, after a lot of networking and perseverance I found a job in HR at PwC. I worked for PwC for the rest of our time in Japan, which ended up being nine years!

And now in the UK

After nine years we decided to move back to Europe. There were many reasons to make this decision but the most important one was that the children were not growing any roots. With their height, blond hair and blue eyes they were never going to be seen other than as a foreigner by the Japanese. Japan is not a very diverse country and some of our friends who have lived there for more than 30 years, speak the language fluently and are married to a Japanese, are still seen as outsiders, which frustrates them tremendously.

We packed up and landed in Surrey in the UK and I have never regretted this decision. While living in big cities for 15 years I had never realised how much I missed the outdoors. We now live very close to the Surrey Hills, an area of outstanding natural beauty.

And, of course, the hunt for a job started all over again. PwC in the UK had no interesting roles available at the level I was at. Instead, I decided to set up my own company and offer my HR services to whoever was interested. I worked with a small Diversity & Inclusion firm for a while but I didn’t enjoy the repetitiveness of the work and that is when I decided to become a coach.

OpenRabbit expat partner coaching

As a trained coach you can coach anyone but that is not a very good marketing message. I needed to decide who my ideal client was. Who did I want to work with? Very soon it came to me; expat partners! The accompanying spouses who gave up their careers to join their spouses on their overseas assignment. The accompanying spouses who were highly educated but did not know how to find a fitting role for them in the country where they had landed.

There is very little support for this group of, in 80% of the cases, women. The partners earn enough and there is usually no need for additional funds. The fact that the wife doesn’t need to work is seen as a luxury. There are many leisure activities that these expat women can get involved in but are they fulfilling?

I work with those expat partners who are seeking professional fulfilment. Expat partners who have decided that it is time to focus on themselves and use their professional skills and experience again. This can be in paid work or in other ways that brings them fulfilment. More information about this on my website.

In run a Facebook group where these expat partners can meet likeminded people who understand their way of life and know how it feels to have to give up your career and move from country to country as a supporting wife. These are the women I support in finding their own professional activity, be it in paid work or otherwise.

And my children are like these Shell children from my childhood.They have lived in three different countries, attended international school and speak English fluently. They think it is normal but secretly I still think it’s cool.