Somewhere Beyond the Seas
- Brainz Magazine
- May 16
- 6 min read
Mark Welch has been providing professional immigration services for over 20 years. While continuing to focus on visa services for his native Australia, he also advises applicants in the growing global Citizenship by Investment (CBI) market.
From a personal perspective, what a great song. It was my wedding song, apt for someone who found their partner on the other side of the world. The song still makes me smile, even though I have heard it a lot in a TV advert in recent months.
From a work perspective, marrying someone from “somewhere beyond the seas” led me to my career. I had moved to the UK to be with my girlfriend and was working in a client management role at a telecommunications software company. It was the dot-com boom, and times were good: business-class travel on a whim, lots of socializing, and whatever it took to win and keep clients.
We had just bought a house and then got married. Upon returning from my honeymoon to the UK, I turned on my work mobile at the airport. It was the days when you weren’t contacted while on holiday, and it didn’t work. I had only been away for two weeks.
Borrowing my new wife’s phone, I called a work colleague. I soon found out that half the staff I worked with (including myself) had been made redundant, and that was that.
While not a great start to married life, I had to get on with finding a new job ASAP. Very quickly, and with a hint of desperation, I found work in the immigration industry at a local immigration agency looking for people who could learn how to assess, advise, and assist individuals and businesses with applying for and obtaining Australian visas, with a bit of New Zealand, Canada, and the United States thrown in. It suited me perfectly.
I enjoyed the work and it soon led to studying for some professional qualifications, passing a test, proving I was of good character, and then registering as an Australian migration agent. I have now been registered for 20 years.
It’s deeply personal work. It’s asking individuals for some very personal information. It’s understanding who they are, what they have done and being able to evidence this. For businesses, it can be commercially sensitive. What are their plans in their destination country? Do these plans comply with the requirements in that country? If not, then how can it? Who else do we need to involve? How long will it take? Does that suit the client?
So, whilst some questions seem universal when assessing and then submitting visa applications, there are also complexities and nuances depending on the country and the visa type.
So, while my focus on Australia has remained steadfast as my career has progressed from working in a boutique immigration business to a global professional services firm in Australia and Europe, and then to my own business, my experience has continued to grow beyond just Australia and the few other countries detailed above.
When working predominantly in the corporate, entrepreneurial, investor, and high-net-worth individual (HNW) visa categories, I had to maintain a global focus. I started to manage, with the assistance of local professionals, clients who also needed help with Europe and Asia as well.
With this broad experience across categories and countries comes a global perspective: a recognition that the majority of visas are required for a few reasons and from certain groups of people, mainly skilled, educated, or successful individuals.
An understanding that while visas can be for purely practical purposes, they can also be life-changing. They can be the culmination of a long-held dream to move somewhere new or, in more recent times, a drive for individuals to provide more residency and citizenship options for themselves and their families.
The practical purpose can be assisting an applicant in applying for a business travel visa so they can travel to win new business, fulfill short-term work requirements, attend a work conference, or receive training. This can be easy or have some complications. It can also involve assisting applicants in participating in or working on events such as sporting world cups, tennis grand slams, or global tours like F1, where consultation with industry, unions, or sporting bodies may be required. Often, the applicants' clients in this space will need to work on films, TV shows, or documentaries to record, produce, and present international events or to compete. They can also include well-known celebrities, musicians, and their staff who may be touring or promoting their books on the radio or TV, appearing in adverts or creating content for their media channels.
Alternatively, it can be a visa for more than a short-term visit, allowing an applicant to stay for a few years, where they are on secondment as part of a global mobility program to establish a business on behalf of their employer. A common concern for these arrangements are managing the risk of the applicant's stay to ensure they aren’t exposed to anything that will jeopardize the operations of the business or the applicant's ability to stay in the country, particularly if they have a spouse and children with them.
However, it can also be in emergency situations where an applicant can make a difference, such as assisting in an industrial accident or natural disaster, or providing desperately needed services, such as during COVID when the world was locked down and travel was minimal, aside from a few exceptions and exemptions.
It may also involve someone moving permanently by choice for family purposes, such as when their spouse wants to return to their home country, along with their partner and children.
In broader terms, it will be because a client has decided that the grass is greener, the sky is brighter, the water is warmer, and the opportunities are greater somewhere else.
In these cases, a country’s migration policy is usually driven by an aging population, declining birth rates, and large skill shortages in certain industries. It’s still pretty much true that, within reason, if you work in healthcare, trade, or in a professional occupation, there will be a pathway for people to go somewhere.
However, increasingly, and more so in recent times, it’s successful entrepreneurs or investors, or individuals who are considered Global or Distinguished Talent.
These include leading academics, artists, or athletes.
These applicants are, as the name suggests, high-achieving people. Those who, if not nationally, have a global reputation in their field. They come highly recommended, may have won awards, or, if an academic, have been published widely.
If they are entrepreneurs, they have established successful businesses, may be able to show the ability to raise venture capital, commercialize a product or service, and then run and/or exit the business successfully. They will have created wealth for themselves and/or investors. The common sectors for these applicants are technology, renewables, health industries, education, financial services & fintech, infrastructure, and more.
Alternatively, there are Citizenship by Investment (CBI) programs, which are a growing immigration sector.
These programs provide a pathway to residency, and more often than not, citizenship for applicants and their families. They allow those with the means to look at options to invest in a country and, with that, gain a lot of benefits. As mentioned, often it’s about obtaining a second citizenship, and there can also be significant tax advantages.
These programs have been especially appealing to British citizens. Those who have much-reduced options to live long-term in European countries post-Brexit.
It also applies to citizens who are disgruntled by the policies of the day, no matter which party is in power. This has included U.S. citizens in recent years.
They have also been appealing to individuals from countries that may face political turmoil, are considered unsafe, or have restricted travel and visa opportunities.
The common CBI programs cover Europe, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Asia.
Popular countries include Portugal with its Golden Visa program, the UAE, and the USA.
So, the world can be your oyster. It helps if you are highly skilled, have been successful in your own right, and have the means as well, especially for CBI programs. The world is complex and changing. Global visa policy reflects this.
Read more from Mark Welch
Mark Welch, Australian Visas & Global CBI Advisor
Mark Welch is a UK based multi-national immigration professional. As someone who has spent half his life outside his native Australia, he walks the talk. He believes passionately in the benefits of experiencing life in different countries, and has spent over 20 years advising and obtaining visas for talented individuals, businesses, entrepreneurs and high net wealth investors.
If you need to work, move or set up a business in Australia. Or you dream of obtaining a 2nd passport for you, and your family, under Citizenship by Investment (CBI) pathways. Mark can assess, advise and assist.
