WILD GEESE/Nick Barniville, Director of MBA programmes at Berlin's ESMT business school:NICK BARNIVILLE couldn't believe the change in Germany when work brought him back here for a second time after 15 years away. The Shankill native enjoys the work-life balance here so much that, like many new Irish arrivals, he wonders how much longer Germany will remain Europe's best-kept secret.

“Germany is way more cosmopolitan, less insular, more confident now. I think the World Cup 2006 had a tremendous impact on the country,” he says. “Most of the other differences I would put down to the specificities of Berlin, a hotch- potch of diversity and tolerance that’s like an onion whose many layers reveal new sides.”

Living abroad has been the norm for Barniville (40) for most of his career, arising from the “bleak” prospects when he left Blackrock College in 1988.

“My lasting memories of the 1980s, aside from great music which hasn’t been as good since, were the raging debates about Barry Desmond closing hospital beds and the Dunlop factory closing down,” he said.

Anxious to get out of Ireland and travel, he chose the languages and marketing course in NIHE, later Dublin City University, because it allowed him to study abroad. His Erasmus year in Bayreuth was, he says, “excellent craic, not overly serious and intensely liberating”.

After graduating, he began his career in Germany helping construction company Sisk win opportunities in the post- unification euphoria. “Of the 100 in my graduating class, I think about 90 went abroad, mostly to Germany, France, Spain or Japan.

“I had a great time with some great people in the building trade. There was a good buzz, it was different, exciting. People looked after each other.”

After Sisk, he travelled the world assisting the chief executive of the Thomas Cook travel agency. He took two years out to travel followed by a stint with Enterprise Ireland in New York. He then completed a masters in political economy in London.

Barniville then joined the Insead business school in Fontainebleau, marketing its MBA programmes.

Four years at the Smurfit Business School followed before last year’s move to the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT), a privately-funded business school founded in 2002.

The institution is based in Erich Honecker’s old east Berlin offices, now a protected structure. There is a certain irony watching MBA students hurrying to seminars past stained-glass windows depicting scenes from an idealistic worker/peasant state.

The business school is a new departure in Germany, offering what Barniville describes as a “world-class business education not necessarily focused on the Anglo-Saxon way of doing business but the German model of long-term corporate sustainability”.

The school is funded largely by leading German companies and offers course participants excellent career opportunities thanks to the close co-operation with German industry and its subsidiaries all over the world.

“I’d encourage any Irish graduate looking at studying for an MBA to have a look at school like ESMT,” he says.

Barniville is puzzled that the country has always been somewhat of a grey area for Irish migrants. He sees three major barriers: the language, the climate and prejudice.

“With the language, it’s simple: learn German or be prepared to go into manual labour,” he says. “French is beautiful as a language but I think German is more useful if you want a career. If you just show up with some German in Munich, you’ll do a lot better than arriving in Berlin without.”

He warns that the German capital offers many attractions, but ample job opportunities are not among them. “Berlin is a 24-hour city but, unlike New York, you don’t always feel like you are missing out on something.”

A much higher hurdle for many Irish to clear, he suggests, are the firmly established notions about what Germany and “the Germans” are like despite never having set foot in the country.

“Now I think we’re pushing at an open door driven by necessity rather than desire; increasing numbers of Irish people who come here will be pleasantly surprised by what they find,” he predicts.

“There’s a certain rigour and professionalism about way people go about their work and their lives, a good work-life balance and stability that is quite a contrast to the fecklessness culture that developed in Ireland.

“People work hard here,” he adds, “but they do things properly and take a certain pride in their work.

“People who come here after the heady days in Ireland might find that a pleasant contrast.”