Who? Ava-Marie Wright-Johnson, change & communication lead (global team), Heineken International

Where? Amsterdam

The buzz: Wright-Johnson has landed a permanent role on the Heineken Global team.

The back story… After living and working in Jamaica, Panama and Mexico, I was craving a multicultural environment with a larger international community.

The Netherlands was always a possibility as the head office of Heineken. My employer is located there, and being a part of a regional team my team members were quite global. For someone like me who values culture and ethnic diversity it was welcoming to have landed a permanent role on the Heineken global team.

The Netherlands has one of the largest English-speaking proficiencies in Europe and so it’s not hard to navigate the Dutch capital. Communicating in pharmacies, restaurants, supermarkets and convenience stores is not challenging as most staff have English as a second language. Although I am proficient in Spanish, the cultural dynamics were more challenging in Panama and Mexico.

The more… The cost of living in Amsterdam is high. The average cost for a two-bedroom apartment is about 1,800-2,500 euros. There are, however, great options for grocery and shopping, so one can find cost-effective solutions. But so are the salaries; you can expect to earn triple what you would in Jamaica with a special tax rule for expats!

The lifestyle is super-relaxed… The Dutch place high value on personal life and family time, when compared to the Caribbean or the Américas. Even fathers are allowed to take off a few hours from work to spend time with children. This positive balance of work and personal life is one of my favourite things about the culture. Moving from Mexico and Panama with a more rigid 9-5 culture, back and forth to the office in a high volume of traffic was not something I missed, even if this means biking to work. Now transitioning through a pandemic where working from home and virtual meetings were a norm makes it even more comfortable and flexible for me.

The city is clean and easy to traverse… and every corner is an opportunity for a photo with canals spanning miles, bridges for the perfect backdrop and museums and art to enrich your soul. Biking is the most popular mode of transport with trains and trams on every street. Uber can be an option, but most places are close so it’s not that difficult to move around. Walking has become my favourite pastime as the parks, architecture and overall city are quite beautiful.

Conveniently for me, I live approximately 15 minutes from Schiphol airport, which is the gateway to every major city in Europe.

A major obstacle about relocating is oftentimes adapting to the food… Not here! Amsterdam is a hot food scene that boasts a vast array of eating options. The classic Dutch menus are now being reinterpreted and reinvented to cater to the new wave of healthy eaters, some of whom are vegetarians and vegan, with an increasing focus on cocktails, wines and beers.