Making the Right Choice

Parental Choice helps expatriates and their families to settle in by offering relocation and childcare support.

Founded in the UK, Parental Choice is a one-stop provider for childcare solutions for international families. Its goal is to help expatriate working parents through their relocation and reorientation services, helping corporates to ensure their employees and their families are properly settled with minimum stress and maximum support.

After speaking to some expatriates in Hong Kong and understanding their pain points, Sarah-Jane Butler, CEO and Founder, realised a market gap and an increasing demand for a one‑stop relocation solution for expat families in the city. The company decided to open an office in Hong Kong in October 2018 and offer an holistic approach to factors outside workplace affecting working parents tailored to Parental Choice’s corporate clients’ expatriate employees.

Parental Choice’s services in Hong Kong cover relocation assistance such as childcare and western nanny recruitment, as well as offering nursery and school information in the region. They also work with corporates’ HR departments on supplying an information reorientation kit about the city for their new employees. Details include requirements in local ID and registration, cultural information and guidance on how to link in with local and expat communities.

A city that favours business

Butler finds Hong Kong a very vibrant city that is full of business opportunities. “Hong Kong is a crucial business location for us and as the city is always people-focused, it will be our hub for expansion in Asia,” said Butler, “Here we are exposed to a myriad of opportunities to work with international companies and their employees as the city is a hub of global headquarters and regional offices.”

“Thanks to the city’s geographical location, we can now also handle the interests of our clients in Sydney and Singapore from our Hong Kong office which we normally could not handle from the UK,” she added.

The company’s short-term goal is to drive business awareness in Hong Kong and in the region. “We want our office here to be viewed with trust as the support provider for relocating families,” Butler said. Their next endeavour is to expand their services into the Mainland China market. “There are massive opportunities in Mainland China, and the number of people relocating between China and the UK are huge. In that case, we want to offer our services from Hong Kong or Mainland China as well as the UK, helping them to settle their lives in the UK and Hong Kong respectively”

She said that the services provided by InvestHK have been very helpful for their set up and expansion. “InvestHK is very keen to support us and provide opportunities to meet people in Hong Kong and in the UK. They made useful introductions including connecting us with the British Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong,” she concluded.