An innovation expert packs her bags after three tough years.

On the night before coming to Denmark, Anna Kirah stayed late at the office with butterflies in her stomach and tears welling in her eyes.

”It is an emotional decision to move to a new country and leave a job you love,” Kirah, 49, says. ”I was working at Microsoft in Paris then with participatory design on projects like Windows and MSN and I loved my job, but I got the chance to come to Denmark to lead an international school for radical innovation called the 180º Academy, and it seemed too good to pass up.”

There are not many people in the world who do what Kirah does. Officially, she is a Design Anthropologist. Essentially, she is an expert at helping companies become more innovative. Three years ago she packed her bags and headed for Middelfart with high hopes of sharing that expertise with Danish companies.

The transition should have been seamless. Kirah is American by birth, but grew up in Asia, studied in Norway and has travelled and lived all over the world in her previous jobs with Boeing and Microsoft. Her dissertationis entitled 'It is One Thing to Speak the Same Language; It is Another to Speak the Same Culture'. She has even written books on coping strategies for culture shock and international workers. "I never had culture shock myself until I came to Denmark,” explains Kirah, who said she slept on the floor the first three months after arriving because she couldn’t get help finding an IKEA or getting the bed home.

The practical difficulties related to being a foreigner in Denmark like tax laws and visa rules, she says, combined with a feeling of social isolation, or a sense that she will forever be looking in through a glass window, have caused her to pack her bags once again. "If I could give one piece of advice to foreigners it would be don’t come unless you are doing so with a global company who truly has the resources dedicated to helping you. And even then I would say double check everything with the authorities,” she says. ”Because if something goes wrong with your tax or visa status it is you who is held responsible, not the company.”

Salary is not an issue
Kirah, who received an expert visa status initially, is also convinced that salary should not be the primary requirement for companies in obtaining expert status for their employees. Instead, she says, companies should be able to show that they have the resources to support international experts and their families when applying for a visa. "During the financial crisis I would happily have gone down in salary to help my company, who could not afford the expert status salary requirement, but they were forced to let me go.”

Now, because Kirah has been in the country for three years, she is facing the reality of paying back three years worth of tax incentives or leaving. Her 18 year-old daughter will stay in Denmark with friends until she finishes school, but for Kirah the decision is made. "There are a lot of wonderful people in this country and I am privileged to work with a lot of them, but this has undoubtedly been the most frustrating time of my life.” Kirah adds, saying that her next stop is Norway, where she plans to continue working with the many Danish clients and executives she advises today.