Multi-cultural Team Building at AP ICE

Around-The-World Dinners

I am a Manager at Deloitte AP ICE US Desk in Hong Kong, AP ICE stands for the Asia Pacific International Core of Excellence which was established in June 2010 to provide international tax consulting services to Asia Pacific based companies investing abroad as well as multinational companies investing in Asia Pacific.   

I work in a group comprised of senior professionals from Belgium, Germany, France, Luxembourg, Ireland, the Netherlands, UK, Canada, US, Singapore, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, and India – as you can see it is a mini United Nations.

We all travel for work quite often, but every month, we schedule a team meeting in Hong Kong. It is a group strategy meeting followed by a dinner hosted by one of the country representatives from  AP ICE. I find that these meetings are beneficial because they give our team time to refocus on our core strategies and talk about what has worked for us as well as areas to improve.

And the fact that each month is hosted by different country making up our team gives us a chance to learn something more about their culture, while relaxing over a group dinner.  Over the past year, I have had dinners hosted by Japan, France, Luxembourg, India, Germany, US, Canada, Korea and the UK.

It even helps overcome some previous myths – for example I recently attended the United Kingdom’s dinner and the Deloitte partner representing the UK explained the different dishes to us and I actually enjoyed UK foods including the BLOOD PUDDING!!!

These dinners are great team building events for our multi-culture environment!