The edtech company has brought its international team from outside Australia and New Zealand, and its people leaders from throughout Australia and New Zealand, to the city.
The international team comes from 10 countries: Canada, the United States, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Scotland, Georgia and the Philippines.
Twenty-five out of 26 of the team had joined after Covid-19, chief executive Alex Burke said.
Four different native languages were represented — English, Turkish, Malay and Cantonese — while other spoken languages included Filipino, Italian, Spanish, Mandarin, Hindi, Punjabi, French, Femaleso and Urdu.
Ethnicities included Filipino, Canadian, North American, Japanese, Turkish, Malay, Chinese, British, Indian, Italian, Pakistani and New Zealand European.
A further 32 people were represented from the company’s people leaders team; five of that team were based in Dunedin, while 27 flew in from various locations across Australia and New Zealand.
Mr Burke said it was the first time the international team had been together. He had not met any of them previously, aside from two Dunedinites who were now working in Dubai.
He was "super pumped" to welcome the team to Dunedin, saying the company had done a lot of work around culture and inclusiveness.
The international visitors were excited to come to New Zealand, while those based in its Vogel St headquarters were delighted to meet and welcome them.
Various events were planned during the week and the aim was around spending time together, making connections and building relationships.
"We have a lot of time for people to just interact. We’ve learnt, over the years, death by PowerPoint," he said.
"Dinner roulette" involved restaurants being booked in Dunedin and names picked out of a hat so previous strangers got to meet their fellow diners.
There were also sports and other activities, along with workshops, while Mr Burke was cooking breakfast for the team on Friday.
Some visitors were extending their stay which was great for local tourism, he said.
Language Perfect was founded by brothers Craig and Shane Smith in 2007.
Craig built an initial prototype of the Language Perfect platform when he was at secondary school and struggling to learn his French and Japanese vocabulary.
In 2013, the platform was expanded to support the wider curriculum and Education Perfect was born.
In 2021, American private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts announced it would take majority ownership alongside Australian private equity firm Five V Capital in a deal which valued the online learning firm at about $435 million.
Mr Burke said there were 260 employees and growing.
It was a very competitive market and it was all about culture and how to attract and retain staff, he said.
The company’s three big goals were an inclusive culture and high-performing team, being a leader in edtech — "a really big global player" — and equal access to education.
