Gizane Campos 0:00

Welcome to Be Global Podcast, the show that explores the fascinating world of investment migration. I am your host, Gisani, and today our guest is Laura Madrid Satoreto, the lead researcher at the Global Intelligence Unit of Global Citizen Solutions. Laura earned her PhD in international migration law and has an extensive background in data analysis and project management. She has contributed her expertise to international organizations, including the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. Laura has also collaborated on research projects with notable institutions such as the University of Bremen and Cornell University. Laura, welcome to the show. Thanks very much. It's so good to have you here. Thank you. And I believe you work from Madrid and your name is Laura Madrid. Tell me a bit about that, because it's quite an interesting coincidence, no?

Laura Madrid 1:01

It is, yes. It's funny because my surname is Madrid, because uh was the surname of my uh grandfather. Uh, but I ended up in Madrid. It it's it doesn't have anything to do with my my nationality or my um my citizenship. I'm Brazilian, but yeah, I ended up in Madrid and we fell in love with the city, and actually, people there really like my surname. I guess they love it, yeah. Yeah, they like it, they they find it very uh um original and yeah and fun. Yeah.

Gizane Campos 1:35

And then but you are you Spanish? Do you have dual citizenship?

Laura Madrid 1:39

No, I I do have dual citizenship, but I'm a uh Brazilian Italian. Um like many Brazilians from the south, uh we have um my grandparents, they were Italian and they moved to they immigrated to to Brazil, and um and then we we got the Italian citizenship, was actually a very interesting uh story, and it shows how important it's to hold a second citizenship. Because in back in the 20s, my 2000s, my sister was applying for an university in the UK. Yeah, and I remember um overseas fees were very, very high, super high, and and uh EU fees were I think three times less than overseas fees. And then um we were in the the process of acquiring the a second, like the Italian citizenship, and then the the dean of the university wanted her to study in the UK in the UK at City University, and he wrote a letter to the council of uh uh Italian council, and then they gave her the citizenship in two months. Wow, and usually it's taking 10 years for people to acquire uh citizenship by descent, Italian citizenship by descent. So it shows how important it is for practical, you know, issues of life to have a second citizenship. Absolutely, especially your European citizenship.

Gizane Campos 3:09

Yeah, I did uh master's degree in the UK as well, and I clearly remember paying um foreigner fees at that time, and uh yeah, it was really hefty. So good. I'm very excited about this show, and you know, I was um basically delving your CV in our uh introduction, but um I want you to tell me more about you, but before that, um we're here to discuss the uh the newly launched um intelligence unit of Global Citizen Solutions, um, which our viewers are all invited to explore on our website, but I won't sell it right now. Um I want to say how um important this is personally for me. I'm not only the host of uh videos and webinars here at Global Citizen Solutions, but I'm also the head of PR. And when you're working with press, it's very important to have um reliable, data-driven information that you can seed journalists with uh trends and um and basically support the angles that you would like them to write about. So when um the idea of the intelligence unit was put together, I was totally up for it and I was like, yes, let's do it, because it's very important not only to have this information available to our consumers, but also for my line of work, um, it enriches the work that I do and the information that I send out to press. So yeah, I am very, very happy that you're here. Um, so just to give a bit of information, a bit of background on the creation of the intelligence unit. Um we, I'm sure if you follow us, we have the Global Passport Index, which was pretty much the imbrionary stages of what the intelligence unit looks like now. So we created our own ranking um of um of uh passports um utilizing data available. Uh then we created the rankings of uh quality of life, the investment index, and the mobility index. So that provided us with a lot of uh information that we shared with press and also with our uh our users. So um we realized that there's a lot more within the realm of uh investment migration, of mobility, of migration that could be explored, that could be analyzed and um and turned into papers, into research. So I won't talk more about the intelligence unit now because we have a guest and she's here to talk about it, not me. So now over to you, Laura. So you told me about your experience uh being an expat, uh you told me the story of your sister. So now I want to know a bit more about your um extensive um background in international migration law. Um has this influenced your um your approach to research in global mobility?

Laura Madrid 6:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. It it did. Uh well, I am Brazilian, as I said, and I started uh studying law in Brazil and then I went to London my first time as an expert. I I took a master in UCL and in public international law and migration studies. I also worked in a law firm there. Uh at the time we were doing like work visas and you know um family reunification visas. Okay. And uh and I learned a lot from that experience, not only from the academic perspective, but also like living in another country and having all the you know the challenges that expats uh face when they are in a different country. Then I I actually went to Italy and I I I lived in Sicily and worked with uh refugees. I worked with international protection and the reception of refugees, and then it was like by boat, especially at the time from Egypt and Libya, because we had the Arab Springs, yeah, and people were just you know fleeing a persecution. And that was a formative experience for me because uh I can imagine, yeah, it changes the way you see borders as like fictions, and it gives you gives you the perspective of people when they arrive in a country and they need really uh to be integrated within the society. And then I went back to Brazil, I took uh another master, I started to uh teach, I took my PhD as well in uh migration and citizenship. That was in Brazil. In Brazil. Then we moved to Spain. Okay, and uh at the time I was doing a lot of uh consulting work for you know the World Bank uh and uh the UNHCR, the IOM, and then uh IOM stands for sorry, because some people might not uh yeah, of course, uh uh International Organization for Migration. Okay, and we were using more and more like data, you know. I didn't have any background on statistics or coding or you know anything related to data, but we were doing work with uh data at the time, and I realized I wanted to know more about data because I had the impression that we would use more and more data to predict uh trends and you know people's movements. And I took uh training in data analysis, and then now what I do is that I try to combine those skills and produce uh uh interesting and insightful uh information from big data and yeah, you know, using artificial intelligence, so we can more or less try to predict uh trends and movements of course of people and wealth, and you know.

Gizane Campos 9:23

So I can understand why um so the migration route was taken in your studies as you had the background in law, and then came uh your masters, the PhD, and the need to have data um to support all of it. I can definitely share the um the necessity because I feel how uh how this how important this is in order to um um provide and create work that it is is relevant.

Laura Madrid 10:00

Yes, and especially when you want to kind of um try to fundament um decision making process for you know uh public policies, um even like if you work in an organization, you're gonna need and you're gonna try to trace like data to make decisions, yeah, you know, in international organizations, uh governments, the administration, or you know, any any any company.

Gizane Campos 10:29

Yeah.

Laura Madrid 10:30

And we have actually we have uh a lot of data available publicly. We always have to try to get updated information from the databases we we have, but if you know how to look for it and how to extract it, you can you can use this um important information to to make insightful um analysis.

Gizane Campos 10:57

Yeah. So now we're here. Uh you are here at Global Citizen Solutions, which is great. Um, so tell me how um how how it all happened. What motivated you to start working with Global Citizen Solutions?

Laura Madrid 11:12

Well, uh I remember we started our conversations in uh six months ago, and uh I actually I contacted you through LinkedIn because I I found your work very uh interesting and and insightful, you know, the web page, you know, everything you were doing at the time. But I was uh I was uh more or less uh working with data at the time. So what we did is we tried we tried to really combine my backgrounds to uh add value to the company. And you were really looking for a person that could lead the the intelligence unit and they could have a background in migration and global mobility, yeah, but could also bring new technologies and you know um and all this uh information that we have available to produce um meaningful uh information from that uh that that uh data we have available. Yeah. I think we yeah, we talked for like more or less six months and we were aligned with what we wanted for the intelligence units to produce reliable and and data-driven uh reports and publications. And at the end, the beginning of 2024, we we we set the deal. Yeah, and I'm here, and you're here and I'm super happy.

Gizane Campos 12:36

Yeah, me too. I'm very happy. Um, and also just to to echo what you're saying, there's just so uh much trends going on in relocation, in migration, in wealth management. Uh, so much has changed in the scenario since we emerged from the pandemic um in 2021, kind of you know, um, that it we felt internally that it was about time for us to put together uh reports that could analyze all the strengths and predicts the future, as you said. Um, so that is really good. So now talking about the future, yeah. So can you tell me a bit about the upcoming publications that uh global uh intelligence unit will bring to us? Um I know you have a those reports, actually. Sorry, just taking a little uh bracket here to tell our viewers or listeners that we have it all now on our platform. So you just go on Global Citizen Solutions website and you'll be able to see the reports there. So I believe there's one about Malta, there is one uh which talks about the super election year. So it's a really important one as half of the world population is going to the polls um this year, and one about the US retirement trends. So can you tell me a little bit about these three reports?

Laura Madrid 14:04

Yeah, sure. But first of all, I want to tell you that you know, I really believe data is is uh value uh nowadays, but we also have to separate what is good information and you know all the noise that we have online and and and then I think the the the intelligence unit will be uh a valuable uh um uh department in this in this uh matter, trying to really seek you know reliable information and the well the rubbish you have online. Yeah. We we started talking about the the case the ECJ's case in Malta because the European courts of justice. The European Court of Justice, because the outcome from that judgment will impact the whole European landscape on investment migration. The court is deciding if um member states are still uh the the the bodies that can regulate on nationality laws. And if the court decides to validate multi-cbi schemes, you can uh you you're gonna see more and more schemes uh being created in other countries in the European Union. You might have also more harmonized uh regulations among those uh those schemes, but on the other hand, if the court decides that you know um European Union can have a say on on that matter, then you might have a landscape that is more uh restrict to CBI, our CBI schemes, and other parts of the world will uh um be more uh interesting.

Gizane Campos 15:51

Of course, and that's a very important point to make it.

Laura Madrid 15:53

Yeah, maybe you know the countries in the Caribbean, we have the Pacific, some Pacific Islands, you have you know Thailand, Malaysia, well, many other South America, Uruguay, many other possibilities. So this is very important. It might uh uh seem to be a very, let's say, um a very legal perspective, but it it actually impacts uh investment migration. Yeah. Then we have well the super election year report, and we are trying to, we are analyzing how elections will impact investment migration in the near future. Yeah. And how political instability can lead to the desire to relocate, and where people are seeking for uh relocate when they have instability, political instability in their countries. We also are we kind of seeing a desire for people to have a second citizenship as insurance plan for political and economic instability. Yeah, and then in the same trend, we we have a very interesting report on international retirement migration, especially um uh mainly related to US retirees, because by 2035, 17% of the American, the US population will be over 65 years old, and you cannot rely on uh social security. You repeat that data again because 17% of the population in the US will be 65 plus. Wow, okay, and it's a huge impact for you know all the social security system. So people are seeking um relocation plans to stretch their pensions, to plan their retirement. And also if you think about European countries, car or countries in the Caribbean, people are thinking about uh quality of life, uh, healthcare system, you know, uh there are many, many factors that will um will uh impact the decision. Yeah, and also it's very important for us to to not forget that in the the next two decades we are going to have the biggest, the largest uh wealth transfer from the baby boomers to millennials and to generation Z. And this is also important to trace because you're gonna have to identify how these people invest, uh, how these uh generations they see work environment. We have now, for instance, something also uh uh coming for um digital nomadism, because you know, millennials and and and z gen they are more um uh open to digital nomadism, uh new forms of uh investment with uh digital assets like cryptocurrencies, everything uh that is related to this uh behavior of the the next generations in the in the field of relocation, global mobility, investment, wealth, work, and everything that impacts you know the the life of those are very, very interesting topics you just mentioned.

Gizane Campos 19:17

I think there's also tax, um, which is something of relevance to anyone who is studying uh doing succession planning, uh wealth transfer, um, and that sort of information is kind of scattered everywhere. So it's good, as you always mentioned, reliable information. So it's good that we are looking to get all this information um sieved through um to just keep what is relevant and uh go away with all the noise, uh, which is pretty much personal views rather than being based on data. So, Laura, we talked about uh the upcoming reports and thank you very much for that overview. It was very thorough. Uh, but I want to focus on one detail that you mentioned here, uh, which I think it really impacts the global mobility industry, and also mentioned a bit about tax. But I'd like to um for you to give us an overview about wealth management and wealth transfer, since you mentioned you mentioned it a few times before. Um, I know that in the realm of uh wealth management, the uh intelligence unit will delve into high net worth individuals. So can you give us a bit more information on that?

Laura Madrid 20:42

Sure, yes. Uh when you talk about uh high net worth individuals, we we need to we need to realize and note that we're gonna have in the next two decades the the biggest wealth transfer in you know in the world. It's um the silent generation and the baby boomers will pass 85.4 trillion um in assets to their descendants. What you said is 84.4 trillion trillion dollars to the next generations, the millennials and um generation Z. And then it's important to identify how these people deal with wealth, investment, uh, work life, uh, you know, uh, and all the issues that will impact their lives. Because we we realize, for instance, that uh millennials and and the Z generation, the Z generation is more um comfortable in investing in digital assets, cryptocurrencies. These people are more um uh in favor of uh digital nomadism that will travel and work from one place and you know get the salary from. From other countries. We have what we call also intermediate nomads that are people that live six months in one country, the country of their nationality, and then they go, especially in uh European winter, for instance. Yeah, they go and live six months in in a tropical country. So the industry and the companies, they need to try to find to adjust to this uh scenario that will uh be um the reality in the next next decades. And we wanted to anticipate this uh predictions and analysis to uh help to give information to the industry to to uh uh produce uh products for for for those clients, bespoke products for for for this type of clients because they they behave very different from their antecessors, you know, from uh generation silent generation and baby boomers. It's a it's a shift.

Gizane Campos 23:06

Yeah, definitely, because baby boomers invested in real estate, but they bought it for like um $500. Exactly.

Laura Madrid 23:23

They will uh invest in some um uh financial projects, but you have now all this new realm of uh cryptocurrencies and digital assets uh and uh FTs and you know there's also the more sustainable friendly funds that um this generation, the Z is like to invest. Exactly. There's also there's also research from LFS, for instance, that say that this is not only a generational subject, but it's a gender subject because more women women will inherit from their uh ascendants, you know, the wealth. And new generations and women are more um they're more interested in principled investments. And when we talk about principled investments, we talk about um uh sustainable development, we talk about cultural heritage, uh scientific uh research. Okay, yeah, and you know, Portugal is uh is an example of a country that kind of shift their uh uh RCBI scheme to offer these uh products to investors. Yeah, yeah, true.

Gizane Campos 24:39

So and more countries will will do that, yeah. And then tell me one thing, Laura. Do you think what you um what the intelligence unit uh produces in terms of reports will also um perhaps, I think you mentioned that, but I just want to reinforce because that was a good thought. Do you think it will also impact or influence the internet, the investment migration uh industry, the the key players? Do you think the the reports produced here will certainly kind of impact what uh we're doing out there?

Laura Madrid 25:12

Yes, I I uh yes, that's what we want to do because we are not preparing, you know, all this uh reports and information, not only for uh the company itself and also for the clients, but for for for the broader industry. Because we think that uh when you when you take away the you know the rubbish and the noise and use data and um intel uh artificial intelligence to create reliable information, we can help the industry to adapt to this new reality. So what what we wanted to do is um seek for data, uh use data, analyze the information, and uh forecast some trends in the industry for the industry. Okay, and then of course uh we can add to this uh debate on global mobility, investment migration, digital nomadism, the transfer of wealth and wealth uh relocation um in a broader context.

Gizane Campos 26:16

Yeah, so this all will be achieved by the use of sophisticated analytics and uh so a lot of uh data analysis here because of my um incapability of uh deal with numbers, uh, hence why I do public relations, I'm from humanities. But um there's also the use of artificial intelligence and technology in this day and age that could help us crunch the numbers and uh produce um data analysis of uh good quality. So can you tell me a bit more about the technology that will be used by the um intelligence unit?

Laura Madrid 26:54

Yeah, uh we know that we have uh several uh public uh databases where we can uh get data and um clean. What we say is that we clean the data and then we use uh sophisticated software to analyze and um visualize the information in a more user-friendly way. Okay, but it is important to mention that uh Global Citizen Solutions Intelligence Unit, of course, is very keen on you know new technologies uh and the using of available data to uh help us to understand new trends, but we will also rely on on our experts and consultants because we believe that human uh resource and human intelligence is uh the the differential for uh when we want to produce uh reliable information. So, of course, uh new technologies are important and we have all the softwares, the tools that are available and the data. But because we have people like experts that are uh literated in the investment migration markets, you know, in many countries, we can combine this um their skills and these software's this tools to create uh uh insightful reports and and and predict trends.

Gizane Campos 28:26

This is very good. I think um maybe I can give some contribution here. Uh I love the sound of your voice, but you know, since I'm here, I might as well speak uh not just ask questions. But uh so just to let our viewers know, uh Laura and I um are working together, and um so it's um I I can confidently say that the the reports that are being produced are very thorough and uh and it covers different sectors of uh mobility, wealth management, migration policy, and so on. But one important point that we didn't touch here is the format. So it will be all available on our website. Laura, uh pitch in if you think um I'm forgetting something, but it will be all available on our website, the entire report, so that you can spend time there exploring. There will be insights from collaborators. Yes, that's right.

Laura Madrid 29:26

Yes, that that's a very important uh thing to mention because not only do we have experts within the company, but we are going to seek for the best and the brightest in the subject matter of each publication. So when you're talking about uh cryptocurrencies, we are going to talk to people that work in the field and they, you know, that they know the industry and they are going to give their insights in our reports. And you know, when you're talking about uh global mobility, international retirement migration, we are seeking for these people to add value to our reports.

Gizane Campos 29:59

So Laura, we were talking about collaborators, and you mentioned that people from uh the industry and of relevant field of the topic of the study will be collaborating with us with uh articles, signed the articles or interviews or webinars, but there's also um people from within Global Citizen Solutions. Can you tell me a bit more about that?

Laura Madrid 30:22

Yeah, because you know, in Global Citizen Solutions, we have experts and you know, uh legal investment migration, tax law, and and other fields that um can contribute to to the insights that we are going to have in each report. So it's it's very important to us to that that these people they can uh put their their contributions to the to the report, and we are going to see more and more uh our experts uh giving their insights on the data we are collecting and um analyzing. That's why for us methodology is also very important. We believe that um scientific methodology uh is a way that really will separate the rubbish from relevant information, and uh we we do use uh data-driven uh scientific methodology to build uh an index or or a piece that we are working on.

Gizane Campos 31:26

Okay, so hold a thought. I want to really emphasize on what you just said the scientific method. So, what brings the weight of our uh intelligence units, the produce created by the intelligence unit, is that we have um collaborators that are specific to their fields, we have data that is specific to this topic, and it's not only data uh that is available uh everywhere. Tell me about this method. Because the methodology.

Laura Madrid 32:01

Yes, we we search for information in reliable public uh databases, and then of course, each report will require a different method methodology. Of course. We are going to use you know statistical uh maths to create an index, or maybe we are going to do like a survey to uh try to uh identify and collect uh behavior um from you know a pool of people, a set of people. And we are always going to use uh this very uh rigorous uh scientific methodology to uh uh create our our reports. Yeah. Of course, uh each each um format requires a different methodology, but that's very important to us because we know there are a lot of information, you know, about investment, migration, relocation, global mobility. But then when you're going to check the methodology, you cannot uh trace uh where the data comes from. Is it reliable? Is it from public sources? Is it you know, you can you trust on that data to predict or to identify that trend? And it most of the times you cannot. And for me, because I have this uh scientific background, it's very important to use reliable data. It's amazing, yes.

Gizane Campos 33:21

We do also um uh echo this need in the industry. Um, scientific methods should be the way forward, and um, and I think what uh is coming now is will be really fascinating and um and will be a great development from what we started with the global passport index. Let me see here because there's so much that we discuss. I just want to make sure that we cover everything. I'm just gonna have a look at my list of questions here. Um, so we talked about the formats of the publication, right? Um so that there will be monthly briefs, which are shorter reports, and there will be the white paper, uh, which will be a further, more thorough, bigger uh report. Um, everything will be laid out on our website. So if you are browsing through the website now, so you'll be able to see how it's laid out there. Um, with graphs to make it um easier for the um viewer to visualize the data. Also, with uh webinars, with interviews like this one we have in here, and articles from collaborators. So it will be um really gold material.

Laura Madrid 34:42

Exactly. Very user-friendly, yes, very user-friendly but reliable. Yeah, that that's very important. We were we were actually involved in the creation of the the website for for for you know for the reports and the publications, and we were really keen that you know user users would have a good experience when you know browsing uh uh on the you know the articles, the videos, the rankings when they are available, the graphs, the charts and tables, because I think it's very important also to have a good experience when browsing through the information that we have available.

Gizane Campos 35:20

Yeah, I think we had a really good and productive conversation, but I want you to before you part away, give me your last words, what do you expect for from uh the intelligence unit and uh and anything that you want to highlight here?

Laura Madrid 35:38

Yes, uh, thank you very much. I really enjoyed um talking to you. Uh, I'm super excited for what we are we are producing here in Global Citizen Solutions Intelligence Unit. And as um I would say that as my final words, uh I always believe that borders are fiction. And more and more, because we have this uh you know, uh industry development in the last 20 years uh since the first um uh investment migration scheme uh came to life. Uh we have more and more uh companies like Global Citizen Solutions that uh make it easier for people that want to relocate, not only relocate but seek for a second citizenship, you know, and to have on their on their bags the possibility to um maintain and um pass their wealth through these um uh strategies. Yeah. So I believe we are here to help, you know, clients and to participate on this broader uh dialogue with the industry to create uh a better and a healthier and um more um understandable uh environment for investment migration and global mobility.

Gizane Campos 36:58

Absolutely. Laura, borders are fictional. I love that uh phrase. Develop a bit more on that.

Laura Madrid 37:05

Yeah, for instance, if you if you um if you see that the the the map of the continent of Africa, for instance, you're gonna see the borders are more like uh squares that were created by at the time by uh colonizers, and they are bureaucratic uh inventions because you know the the globe is open and uh it's uh it's in put in it's a possibility for you to relocate everywhere. But of course, uh state bureaucracy will uh try to prevent you from doing that, but the industry, like companies, you know, the these programs, uh the new possibilities, technology, all of those tools are here to help you to uh develop your life project anywhere.

Gizane Campos 37:55

Yeah, and even a borderless world. Exactly. Okay, Laura, thank you very much. This was great. So I just want to share with uh you who are uh watching us, or if you are listening to listening to us uh via our um audio channels, um, that if you go to global sits and solutions.com, you will be able to explore all the reports that we talked about, all the themes, and um and also and learn something. So thank you very much for watching us, and I hope you learned as much as I did. And I see you next time. Thank you.