Introducing EAC's new Director, Lale

Starting in September, the EAC welcomed a new Director, Lale A. Uribeechevarria. After steering the EAC for several months, we asked her to introduce herself and share her thoughts on what living abroad means to her.

I have been an expatriate for most of my life, so discovering the Expatriate Archive Centre immediately drew me in. The idea of giving expatriate stories a home, and making them accessible for research, strongly resonated with me.

I became Director of the EAC in September. I bring with me experience from a career in diplomacy, as well as my recent role as Global Chief of Staff at an international company. Those roles taught me how to connect people across cultures, build trusted partnerships, and translate a shared purpose into practical progress, skills I am excited to put to work for the archive.

One of my first impressions was how deeply the EAC embodies internationalism. We preserve expatriate stories from all over the world, and we do so with a truly international team. Our small but highly effective group of permanent staff, volunteers, and interns represents nine nationalities, and an even wider range of cultures and languages. Having grown up in an international environment, I felt at home right away.

My career has taken me to many places, and I treasure what I have learned from each one. One characteristic of the Netherlands, now my second home, that I value deeply is its strong culture of volunteering. I have the privilege of working with dedicated staff and volunteers who preserve family (and some organisational) collections with great care, ensuring these stories are safeguarded for future generations.

The expatriate world is large, yet also remarkably small. I was especially moved to discover that I already knew one of the founders of the EAC, from my student days in the Netherlands more than two decades ago. Today, I am proud to continue that work, giving something back to the expatriate community while also helping to deepen understanding of the expatriate experience.

That understanding matters. Learning about one another, other cultures, and other traditions is essential to building empathy and strengthening peaceful cooperation across borders. The collections in our archive tell stories of discovering new places, new people, and new ways of living. It is also something we practise every day at the EAC, perhaps most enjoyably at lunchtime, when we share experiences, explore differences, and recognise unexpected similarities.

I am personally fascinated by how living between cultures and languages enriches people’s lives. I look forward to expanding access to the stories we hold, strengthening our engagement with researchers and communities, and ensuring that the EAC continues to inspire connection, reflection, and mutual understanding.