Leadership Network member's global communications

Will: “Everything I’ve done that is Asia-focused, I’ve engaged with the Foundation and Leadership Network members every step of the way.” 

Will has always been driven to pursue a life where he can wake up and truly enjoy what he does. When he applied this requirement to choosing a career, communications stood out to him. “I find the strategic use of communications to achieve outcomes and impact to be really fun, interesting, and engaging”, he says.  

This passion for communications always sat alongside his dual interest global affairs and foreign policy. He just grew up not knowing what to do with it.  

After completing an undergraduate degree at AUT in communications, majoring in Public Relations, Will started working in corporate and marketing PR in Auckland.  

Will's passion communications and global affairs has taken him around the world including a year working in Fiji in health communications

The TV3 film set of the New Zealand’s Next Top Model Season 2 live finale inexplicably set the scene for the moment where Will’s life pivoted. It was filmed during fashion week, where Will was the photography manager (not a contestant). He got talking to the publicity manager at TV3 who told him MediaWorx were hiring, and that he should apply.  

As a freshly inducted MediaWorx employee, over time Will started helping out more on news and current affairs communications. He was promoting stories about New Zealand troops in Afghanistan, supporting Paddy Gower covering US elections, or other journalists reporting on Gaza, South Sudan, and other conflict zones.   

He was suddenly whisked away to a world of global affairs — the familiar long-standing passion he didn’t know quite what to do with. Between political investigations, global politics, and world news, “I was like, this is it'', he says.  

Will in Sudan where he worked in communications for the UN

TV3 created the conditions for his epiphany: “I could now see that I can take communications and work on international relations and combine those two things”.  

Equipped with a renewed sense of purpose, Will embarked on a master’s degree in global diplomacy and international relations. He did this alongside working full-time at TV3. When asked how he balanced this slightly Sisyphean pursuit, he answered, “oh, I didn’t”.  

His dissertation centred around Indonesia-ASEAN (Alliance of Southeast Asian Nations) foreign policy. Early connections to Indonesia built his fascination with the powerhouse archipelago nation.  

His mother had a chain of furniture stores in New Zealand that had its factories, and her business partner, based in Surabaya. “So from the ages of about 10-17, I would go to Indonesia twice a year and end up in the middle of the jungle — in a factory or a village”, he describes.  

From being left to his own devices as a teen in the Surabayan jungle, he returned to Indonesia several times throughout his master’s degree.  

With a shiny new master’s degree, Will started working in communications for the US State Department. His work was focused on engaging around US foreign policy.  

Will spent a year in Fiji working for the World health Organisation

“I was working a lot on strengthening Pacific engagement for the State Department — both in New Zealand and in the Pacific”, he says. He also worked on science and technology, particularly around space.  

He helped establish a NASA-NZ internship programme. With this space focus, he got to do casual things like take an astronaut to the Cook Islands and in his words, “travel at high altitudes around Antarctica while a telescope took pictures of the earth”. 

His life experience up to this point had been nudging him in the direction of joining an international organisation. A job listing in Fiji working for the World Health Organisation would be his big break.  

Will: “Communications has a real potential to make an impact around health issues in particular..."

He spent one year in Fiji working on health communications for the whole Pacific region. In Fiji, he dealt with public health issues like the measles outbreak in Fiji and Samoa and contending with widespread vaccine hesitancy.  

“Communications has a real potential to make an impact around health issues in particular — and particularly in countries without a highly-developed health system”, Will says.  

It was in Fiji he got to grips with the importance of cultural specificity — putting approaches over solutions and listening over advising. “You live and die by your national staff”, Will says.  

A stint working in Sudan for the UN Development Programme was cut short by civil war

Will left Fiji for Sudan to work at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). He arrived just after a change in government, with a focus on peace and stabilisation work in conflict areas. “It was a really positive time for the country”, he says.  

“Sudan is one of the most beautiful countries I’ve ever been to. The people are such wonderful people”. Issues he worked on included renewable energy, climate resilience, and democratic transition.   

After working there for two years, the new government ultimately collapsed, and the country was plunged into civil war. “Everyone I knew had lost everything”, he says.  

Will moved to Somalia amid the unfolding war in Sudan. He was offered a short-term contract for the Norwegian Refugee Council in Mogadishu. He arrived during the worst drought in 20 years. “It was hellish”, he says.  

His task was to bring international attention to the worsening crisis. This was complicated by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and the competition for humanitarian resources and empathy fatigue arising in its wake.  

“We had to be very creative about how we got out our communications”, Will says. Somalia ended up receiving more than $1 billion pledged by the time his contract was up.   

Will disembarking from a United Nations World Food Programme helicopter

After nine months in Somalia, Will packed up to work for WHO again — this time in Laos. Will had previously travelled to Laos and decided that it was one of his favourite countries in the world. He says, “I knew I absolutely had to live there at some point. It was a non-negotiable”.   

Now, his broad Laos mission is to use communications strategically to drive change. The domains of this change are broad — ranging from vaccines, to air pollution, to community engagement, to tobacco tax. As Will says, “everything is intersectional. It’s never just a health issue”.   

Throughout his journey, a significant pillar of support has been Will’s membership in the Leadership Network.  

“Everything I’ve done that is Asia-focused, I’ve engaged with the Foundation and Leadership Network members every step of the way.”  

Over his 10 years of membership, the Foundation has been “an organisation I’ve connected with on such a constant, reliably positive basis — even though I felt guilty for not living in Asia for a bit”, he jokes. 

Now living in Asia and feeling a little less guilty because of it, Will describes life in Laos as “exactly as great as I imagined”.  

While still unsure where the future will take him, it appears Will Seal will have a tough time ever returning to the claustrophobic comforts of his former 2-4 km world.  

The Asia New Zealand Foundation Leadership Network equips the next generation of Kiwi leaders to thrive in Asia. We provide members with the connections, knowledge and confidence to lead New Zealand’s future relationship with the region.