When Mike Burrowes was a pupil at Otago Boys’ High School, he received some sage advice from his economics teacher.
Andrew Swan told him to get a good degree and then a job at the Reserve Bank — "and you can do whatever you want".
Mr Burrowes (37) heeded that advice and, during his 16 years away from Dunedin, gained significant experience in global capital and financial markets across New York, Singapore and Wellington.
Now he’s back — with his wife and three children — and is relishing his role as an investment adviser at Craig’s Investment Partners, along with the quality of life his hometown affords.
Mr Burrowes had fond memories of his formative years in Dunedin. He had a "great time" at Otago Boys’ and was a member of the victorious under-15 rugby team.
He also took up golf at a young age, playing competitively, and he was "trying" to play more golf now he was back in New Zealand.
At the University of Otago, he got serious about studying. He worked hard and completed degrees in economics and finance.
Originally, he wanted to be an economist. Following Mr Swan’s advice, he applied to the Reserve Bank and obtained a job in its markets team. It was, as he quickly discovered, a "wicked" experience.
There was a "super-flat" structure. Mr Burrowes would write up the markets report each morning — featuring what happened overnight — and then sit around on the trading floor as the various teams gave their reports, including him.
The deputy governor would be there, and sometimes the governor — it was Dr Alan Bollard at the time — and the new graduate was "thrown into it", describing the experience as a super steep learning curve.
He had been there six months when the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers occurred on September 15, 2008, during the Global Finance Crisis.
He was on the markets report the morning that Lehmans’ was due to file. The markets team was sending reports to the governor and the prime minister’s office and he remembered sitting there thinking "this is pretty ... cool".
The markets were going crazy and it was an excellent learning experience about how markets function — or not, in that case.
After a year, Mr Burrowes moved to the reserves desk before an opportunity arose for him to spend a six-month secondment at the Bank of New Zealand in Wellington as a currency strategist.
Again, he was "thrown into the deep end" and was there when the kiwi reached a post-float high before crashing down.
After returning to the Reserve Bank, Mr Burrowes and his now wife — the couple met at university — decided to go overseas. They handed in their resignations and sold everything.
They booked flights in and out of South America, three months apart, and "just made it up" as they tripped around "living on the smell of an oily rag".
At the end of it, they decided to keep travelling for another three months, before they flew to Singapore where they had good friends.
There was a three-month slog to find a job and they had to go in and out of Singapore every 30 days to keep their visas.
With contacts from his Reserve Bank days, Mr Burrowes got a job at Standard Chartered Bank, a large emerging markets bank which was particularly big in Asia and Africa, where he worked in the public sector.
Three years later, by which time he and his wife had got married and had their first child, the bank asked if he wanted to move to New York.
Big Canadian funds like the Canadian Pension Plan and Ontario Teachers’ Plan were shifting money into Asia primarily, and he was meeting with those funds.
The family lived in the city for a while —Mr Burrowes described New York as a cool city with amazing energy. It was also dirty and noisy and he was very much an outdoors-type of person.
A relocation specialist led them to Glen Rock, New Jersey — 30km away — and "quintessential American suburbia", he said.
There were big houses with big sections and it was "super leafy". Deer were even running across the front lawn.
Two more children arrived — they had three children under 4 — and Glen Rock became a real home. They made many close friends and Mr Burrowes fulfilled his long-held dream of working in New York.
He loved travelling into the city and there was also an opportunity to travel to Canada.
They ended up buying their house and their children became settled at school. But Covid-19 changed things for the family.
For two years, Mr Burrowes worked from his bedroom. He had always wanted to work in a large global firm — it fitted the bill with 85,000 people in 60 countries — and it was an "awesome experience" but also very intense.
His boss was in Singapore and the public sector team he was in — and became head of — was a global team so he was on calls at all hours.
One minute, he could be talking to someone in Zimbabwe, and then Kenya, Nigeria and China. He would wake to a "tonne" of emails and go to bed chasing people.
When there was an opportunity to travel and work in the city, then things had a purpose. But sitting in his bedroom, it became a little more needless. Lockdown, where the family lived, was brutal and family members could not come and visit.
Mr Burrowes negotiated to work for nine months from New Zealand, returning to Otago in January last year.
He lived with his parents at East Taieri and worked remotely for four months from an office in their house.
Up for 6am calls New York time, it would be midnight in New Zealand and then the day would be "stacked out", some days feeling like they all rolled into one.
After four months, he needed to return to the US and his wife and children — who were attending East Taieri School — stayed on for a few months.
His international experience had been "awesome" but he felt like it had run its course. Living in big cities was also hard.
Thinking he would be returning to work in Wellington or Auckland, he applied for various jobs and had some good conversations going. Then the job as an investment adviser at Craigs arose in Dunedin.
Mr Burrowes had never thought that he would return to Dunedin to live. Both he and his wife liked the city but it was not until they returned last year that they realised it was a "really great city to live in".
Dunedin was a "vibrant little city" and an easy place to live. The family also loved the outdoors and the South Island.
They sold their house in Glen Rock and spent several weeks travelling in the Nevada and Grand Canyon area in a big American campervan, before returning to New Zealand on New Year’s Eve last year.
Reflecting on the move, Mr Burrowes said life was good.
At work, he was back trading again as he managed client portfolios.
He was in the market, buying and selling, and he loved thinking about markets and where they were going to go.
A big attraction was that rather than working with big organisations, he could sit down with someone and discuss their investment.
For him, it was important to build a client base of people that he could get on with. Some younger investors could be clients for 40 years.
"For me, I like that aspect. I enjoy when people say, ‘I trust you, here’s my money’. That doesn’t scare me," he said.
Outside of work, the family was enjoying their new-found quality of life and were settled in the city.
They had bought a house at Waverley and Mr Burrowes was on the board of trustees at Grant’s Braes School.
He was also a judge for the Dunedin Young Enterprise Scheme and it was "really cool" to see the presentations from school pupils.
"It’s good to give back to that stuff, right?" he said.
