Expat Sueli Brodin and organisations Optiver and Access are the winners of the new Expat of the Year Awards, created to recognise the efforts and successes of the international and expat community in the Netherlands. (Includes video coverage.)

View video coverage of the Expat of the Year Awards 2010 by Thehagueexpats.tv

Expat of the year

The public and jury voted unanimously for Sueli Brodin as Expat of the Year due "to her obvious dedication to both the expat and Dutch community and her unique ability to build bridges between both groups." Sueli is the founder and editor of Crossroads, an English language webzine serving the expat community in and around Maastricht. Sueli has lived in the Netherlands for almost two decades, but her journey to the place she now calls home has taken her through Brazil, Pakistan, Japan, France and Israel.

Expat Employer of the Year

Optiver carried off the Employer or the Year award "for their people-oriented approach to their expat and international employees." The evidence submitted during nominations and the amount of support shown by the public proved Optiver to be “an outstanding employer” and one that even the jury felt drawn to work for! Optiver is actively trading on Euronext Amsterdam as a primary and competitive market maker.

Expat Service Provider of the Year

The Service Provider of the year award went to ACCESS for its "ongoing and selfless commitment to the community." ACCESS provides a range of valuable services to expats and internationals in the Netherlands which include courses on Dutch culture and counselling referrals to help support expats in their new life in the Netherlands.

Selection

October through December, 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 winning videos:

Sueli Brodin, Expat of the Year

Access, Expat Service Provider of the year

The winners were announced on Tuesday, 23 March, during the official awards ceremony at Nyenrode Business University. Paul Brown (worldwidebroker.nl) compered the ceremony which was opened by Bas Pulles, Commissioner Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency (NFIA).

Initiation

The Expat Awards are a joint initiative of international recruitment agency Undutchables, news and information site and service provider Expatica, the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency (part of the Ministry of Economic Affairs) and Nyenrode Business University.

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 Award. 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