Henry Fan’s first attempt at international expansion was a disaster. In 2007, flush with success from building China’s premier immigration consultancy, he dispatched his best teams to foreign markets. The results were catastrophic.
Relocated Chinese staff fumbled local customs, misread client expectations, and burned through capital faster than a currency collapse. Within months, Henry was pulling the plug on multiple overseas ventures.
That failure became Globevisa’s greatest breakthrough. Today, the firm operates more than 50 offices across six continents, employs over 800 professionals, and processes thousands of citizenship and residence applications annually for clients from 96 countries.
Henry’s company has become the world’s largest investment migration consultancy by learning one crucial lesson: you cannot export culture.
“Initially, Globevisa attempted to relocate teams overseas to operate their own offices, but this approach failed because the relocated teams were unfamiliar with the local culture,” Henry explains. The solution emerged from necessity rather than strategy.
Instead of transplanting Chinese operations abroad, Globevisa began partnering with established local professionals who understood their markets intimately. The partnership model was born from pragmatic failure, not business school theory.
Take Ivan Yam’s recruitment story. A London School of Economics graduate with investment banking experience across London, Hong Kong, and Singapore, Yam met Henry through mutual contacts in 2023. Within two hours of their first conversation, they had hammered out a partnership agreement.
Yam brought deep Southeast Asian networks and cultural fluency that no relocated Chinese team could replicate. His Vietnam operations quickly became one of Globevisa’s fastest-growing markets.
The Partnership Machine
The partnership model operates on elegant simplicity. Local partners handle what they do best: client acquisition, relationship management, and cultural navigation.
Globevisa headquarters provides what scales efficiently: program research, legal processing, compliance infrastructure, and technology platforms. Profits split according to contribution, with new partners avoiding headquarters overhead costs entirely.
This approach enabled explosive growth that traditional expansion methods could never achieve. Globevisa established 17 new offices during 2024 alone, adding partnerships from Qatar’s affluent expat community to India’s burgeoning ultra-high-net-worth demographic. Rahul Mohanty exemplifies the caliber of partners Henry attracts.
A Mumbai native who relocated to Dubai before settling in Doha, Mohanty brings decade-plus experience across immigration, real estate, and business consultancy, plus a firsthand understanding of the expatriate mindset driving much of Qatar’s outbound investment migration demand.
The numbers tell a remarkable story. From that modest Chinese office in 2002, Globevisa now offers access to more than 100 immigration programs across 40 destination countries.
The firm has processed applications for over 100,000 clients, spanning everything from Caribbean citizenship programs to multimillion-dollar European residence investments. But raw statistics miss the operational sophistication required to coordinate this machine across multiple time zones, regulatory frameworks, and cultural contexts.
Consider the technology infrastructure alone. Enterprise-level customer relationship management systems track thousands of active cases across dozens of jurisdictions. Real-time communication platforms connect Toronto’s morning operations with Singapore’s evening shift.
Automated compliance monitoring flags regulatory changes in European markets before most boutique firms even hear about them. This technological backbone cost millions to develop but creates competitive moats that smaller firms cannot cross.
Those moats proved their value during recent market turbulence. When Portugal shuttered its golden visa program to real estate investments in October 2023, Globevisa’s integrated systems enabled immediate client communications and alternative program recommendations across its global network.
Smaller firms scrambled to research backup options while Globevisa clients seamlessly pivoted to Greek, Spanish, or Caribbean alternatives already vetted by the firm’s program development teams.
Scale in a Regulated World
Regulatory complexity continues to intensify across major investment migration markets. Enhanced due diligence requirements, increased minimum investment thresholds, and more restrictive approval criteria demand sophisticated legal and compliance capabilities.
Globevisa maintains licensed professionals across key jurisdictions: Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultants, Taiwan National Immigration Agency advisers, Australia’s Migration Agents Registration Authority specialists, and UK Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner experts. Building this regulatory infrastructure requires scale that most boutique firms cannot sustain.
The compliance investment pays dividends during regulatory turbulence. When Turkey eliminated its currency protection program in 2024, redirecting citizenship investment flows away from deposit-based options, Globevisa’s Turkish partner Mesut Guney leveraged established relationships to pivot clients toward real estate alternatives.
Guney, former chief legal counsel at ACUNMEDYA Holding, had built trust with Henry through previous project collaboration. When Henry proposed partnership, Guney recalls, “I thought for a few seconds and said, ‘Why not?'”
This relationship-first approach extends throughout Globevisa’s operations. The firm has evolved beyond traditional immigration consulting to offer integrated wealth management services, including tax planning, real estate advisory, and family office support.
Investment migration decisions typically form part of broader wealth preservation strategies, making coordination across multiple service providers a persistent client frustration. Globevisa’s integrated model eliminates those friction points.
The market dynamics driving this growth show no signs of abating. Geopolitical uncertainty, tax optimization pressures, educational access requirements, and lifestyle preferences push high-net-worth families toward global mobility solutions.
International citizenship has evolved from a luxury preference to a strategic necessity for wealthy families seeking portfolio diversification across multiple jurisdictions.
Recent industry consolidation trends suggest scale advantages will intensify as regulatory requirements increase and program access becomes more competitive.
Smaller firms face mounting pressure to maintain compliance capabilities across multiple jurisdictions while investing in technology infrastructure required for efficient operations. Many lack the capital reserves to weather regulatory changes that can eliminate entire market segments overnight.
The Empire’s Reach
Globevisa’s partnership network enables rapid market entry when new jurisdictions launch investment migration programs, while existing relationships facilitate adaptation to changing requirements in established markets.
When Saint Kitts removed education requirements and extended dependent age limits to 30 in 2025, Globevisa’s established government relationships enabled immediate client advisories and application strategy adjustments across its global network.
The firm processes more investment migration applications than any competitor worldwide, providing negotiating leverage and preferential access that benefits client outcomes.
This volume advantage becomes particularly valuable during periods of program capacity constraints or increased application scrutiny. Government relationships built through consistent, high-quality application flow create access advantages that boutique firms cannot replicate.
Henry’s vision of transforming global mobility access has materialized into an immigration empire spanning continents and serving nearly 100 countries.
That journey from failed international expansion to worldwide market leadership illustrates how competitive advantages often emerge from solving practical problems rather than implementing theoretical strategies.
Globevisa’s success stems from recognizing that global markets require local expertise, then building systems to coordinate that expertise at an unprecedented scale.
The investment migration industry continues evolving as governments balance economic benefits against political concerns about program integrity. Globevisa’s infrastructure positions the firm to navigate these regulatory changes while maintaining client access to evolving program options.
As the industry matures and regulatory complexity increases, operational scale becomes increasingly decisive in determining which firms can deliver consistent results across multiple jurisdictions.
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