Expat of the year
The public and jury voted unanimously for Dean Southall as Expat of the Year due to the sheer "variety of activities and ways he has created to connect people within the international community and support them in different cities and locations as well as building bridges between the international and Dutch community. Central to his work is not-for-profit foundation Legal Aliens. "

Overwhelmed, but thrilled, Dean Southhall speaking at the awards ceremony at Nyenrode Business University on 29 March said: "I'm surprised but very happy on behalf of my group Legal Aliens and co-founder John Green.  Struggling with his 'typical British modesty', Southall  hazarded that he'd won simply because his group had "been going for a while"--he felt the other candidates to be equally deserving.

"It's nice to be recognized by the people we are helping. When I first came to the Netherlands, for the first two or three months I didn't know anybody and was feeling really lonely. That's the reason John and I started the Legal Aliens four years ago," he said

Expat Employer of the Year
IMC Financial Markets carried off the Employer or the Year award scoring highly with their employees on all areas of staff support with noteworthy help pre- and post-arrival.  Employees and spouses alike felt thoroughly supported on all aspects of the relocation and settling in process. Almost the ideal employer it seems!

Head of HR, South-African Laura Montagu, praised the hard work of their HR team in making them the diversity-focussed company they are today: "As well as being a great way of showing expats what we offer, I think it really gives great recognition to the HR team in Amsterdam, how hard they work to make people from all different cultures integrate and feel appreciated!"

Expat Service Provider of the Year
The Service Provider of the Year award went to Knowledge Centre for International Staff (KCIS) for its 'personal touch';  giving Maastricht University's international employees and their family members a warm welcome and offering them valuable assistance to help them move smoothly into their new life at the university.

KCIS project manager Veronique Eurlings felt the award would give a positive signal to the international community: "We want to make sure the people feel at home. We are going to organize much more for the international community. We already have things planned, but I think with this prize we can emphasize more that what we do affects people and people are happy when we organize something for them."

Selection
The public were invited to submit names for the Expat of the Year Awards under three categories: Expat of the Year, Expat Employer of the Year and Expat Service Provider of the Year.  Following the nomination round, an independent jury of professionals selected five finalists per category. The finalists were then invited to make a short promotion video and the results were posted online. The public voted for their favourite. The jury based their final selection on the videos and the number of votes they received.

The Event:

The winning videos:
Expat of the Year

The winners were announced on Tuesday, 29 March, during the official awards ceremony at Nyenrode Business University. Paul Brown of WorldWideBroker compered the ceremony which included a relevant workshop on 'Diversity and Business' and a seminar on 'Building trust: the unwritten rules of the international business game’.

Close call in two categories
Two of the categories had near ties, and Expatica would like to mention Lucy Cunningham, runner-up in the Expat of the year category and Laureate Online, runner-up in the Employer of the year category.

Initiation
The Expat Awards are a joint initiative of international recruitment agency Undutchables, news and information site and service provider Expatica, and Nyenrode Business University and sponsored by ABN Amro, KIT and NFIA. They were set up to honour exceptional expats, outstanding employers and excellence in service.

Mark Welling, Managing Partner Expatica.com, speaking on behalf of the founding members of the Expat Awards, said:

“Expats make an important contribution to the Dutch and world economies, which is why we decided to initiate the Expat Awards. We would like to thank everyone who helped us to honour exceptional expats, outstanding employers and excellence in service.”

Visit www.expatoftheyear.nl/ for more information and photos.

Expatica