The Leadership Network: a catalyst for change — Natalie Sew-Hoy
As part of the Leadership Network's 20th anniversary, we're catching up with some of the members who joined in the early days. This month we catch up with Natalie Sew-Hoy, who joined in 2009, keen to strengthen her connections to Asia and explore her Chinese roots. Soon after joining, she moved to Singapore, where she lived for the next five years. Natalie says being a network member helped her develop the confidence that she could live and work in Asia and connections that helped her along the way.
Natalie visiting Danang, Vietnam, during a five-year stint living in Singapore
For Natalie Sew Hoy, joining the Asia New Zealand Foundation’s Leadership Network gave her the confidence to take her career overseas. Years later, another opportunity through the network would make her reconsider what professional success meant.
A sixth-generation Chinese New Zealander, she was still working out what that heritage meant for her when the network came on her radar.
“I was born in New Zealand and my family, we don’t speak Chinese...But then you look at me; I am ethnically fully Chinese,” she says.
“I was always kind of grappling with that.”
It was particularly true in her early 20s, starting out in a career in market research.
Friends told her about the network, and she joined in 2009, attending an induction forum in Wellington and hoping to get more connected.
Asia was already the goal.
In 2014, Natalie (front centre) took part in the Southeast Asia Hui, which brought together Leadership Network members living in the region to reconnect with the network
Where many New Zealanders aimed for the United Kingdom, Natalie had long looked up to older women in her extended family - “jeje” - who had worked in Hong Kong and elsewhere in the region.
“I was always like, ‘I want to go to Asia. I want to experience it. I want to be immersed in it,’” she says.
The forum widened her view.
She met people with an interest in Asia from many backgrounds, including New Zealanders of Asian descent, immigrants and refugees.
It also introduced her to diplomacy, with a visit to the Chinese embassy, a world away from her business-minded family.
“That was really fascinating,” she says.
What the network gave her, she says, was confidence.
“It probably instilled more confidence for me to go to Asia for my OE.”
That OE began in 2011.
Natalie (here in Hoi An, Vietnam) says one of the highlights of living in Singapore was the ease of travel to other destinations in Asia
She had hoped for Hong Kong, where her mother is from, but employers wanted Mandarin speakers.
A recruiter found her a role at a small market research agency in Singapore instead, and she stayed five years.
“I didn’t know anyone in Singapore,” she says.
“What is amazing about the network is that ability to connect with people who are already in the region and ask questions.”
She had a group of friends almost immediately, some of whom she is still close to.
The value, she says, was knowing “you weren’t on your own in that situation”.
The work was a revelation, too.
After insular projects in New Zealand, she was working across Southeast Asia, China and, at times, Europe.
Her work in Singapore also challenged her assumptions about what New Zealanders could achieve internationally.
“You hear it sort of throughout your life when people talk about going on their OEs and how New Zealanders are valued, but you genuinely don’t really realise it until you’re over there,” she says.
“You can compete with the world, and our skills and our knowledge is as good as others or better in many cases.”
Natalie (seated) says working in Singapore broadened her career horizons and opened her eyes to what she was capable of
The experience helped prepare her for working across multiple markets and gave her a broader perspective on her own capabilities.
But it was a later Foundation programme that prompted a different kind of development.
Natalie attended the Rethinking Leadership hui in 2017, after returning to New Zealand.
At a time when she was reassessing aspects of her personal life and career, the programme created space to reflect on what mattered to her.
“Some of the things that we went through that weekend were quite deeply uncomfortable, but it really forced you to pause and think about what was really important to you and what your values were,” she says.
Having previously worked hard to advance her career, Natalie began questioning whether the conventional trajectory towards senior executive leadership was what she wanted.
“I realised that, actually, I don't necessarily want to be a CEO,” she says.
“I value the time with my family, and I value the downtime that I get and the opportunity to just reflect and not just be going all the time.”
The network also provided opportunities for Natalie to contribute.
She mentored high school students through the Young Enterprise Scheme in 2017 and 2018, sharing her business knowledge, before taking part in a more formal mentoring programme for others in the network in 2022 and 2023.
Today, she continues to keep in touch with one of her mentees, following her career development.
For Natalie, those opportunities have reinforced the value of a network that works in both directions: opening doors for members while enabling them to share their knowledge with others.
As the Foundation's Leadership Network marks 20 years, she believes its work helping New Zealanders better understand Asia remains important.
With societies changing rapidly and people increasingly exposed to information within their own online bubbles, she sees a continuing need to build understanding of the region.
“I think it's really important to have that connection, and the network does a really good job at helping New Zealanders understand Asia better, and become more Asia aware and Asia savvy,” she says.
Looking back, Natalie is grateful for the opportunities she has been given.
“I think as Kiwis we really have to jump on those opportunities.”
The Asia New Zealand Foundation Leadership Network equips the next generation of Kiwi leaders to excel in Asia. We provide members with the connections, knowledge and confidence to lead New Zealand’s future relationship with the region.
