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The Canberra Business Podcast
A podcast about all things Canberra Business.
The Canberra Business Podcast
Visa And Attestation Without The Headache
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Getting a visa wrong is not a minor admin slip. It can mean landing overseas for a critical meeting and discovering you cannot enter, your documents are not accepted, or your “tourist-friendly” destination has very different rules for business travel.
We sit down with Sorial Ibraheim from CLS Capital Link Services, a Canberra-founded family business celebrating 30 years of helping people and organisations navigate visa applications and document attestation. We talk about the niche that is bigger than most people realise: embassy submissions, foreign affairs processes, and the high-stakes handling of sensitive paperwork like passports, qualifications, and certificates. Soriel shares how the company grew from a home desk and embassy drop-offs into a 14-person team operating across Canberra, Sydney, Auckland, and a newly opened office in Wellington, where being close to diplomatic missions can be the difference between a fast approval and weeks of delay.
We also dig into what keeps a service business strong for three decades: relentless customer service, trusted supplier relationships, and the mindset of treating every client document as if it were our own. From missing parcels to late-night calls across time zones, the human element matters as much as process.
Finally, we look outward to the GCC and Saudi Arabia, including the reality of rapid change, giga projects, and why Australian and New Zealand firms are paying attention. If you manage corporate travel, export documentation, or overseas expansion, this conversation is a practical guide to cutting through red tape before it becomes a crisis. Subscribe, share this with someone planning international travel, and leave a review to help more listeners find the show.
Welcome And Meet CLS
SPEAKER_02Hello and welcome to the Canberra Business Podcast. I'm Greg Harford, your host from the Canberra Business Chamber, and today we're talking to Soriel Ibrahim from CLS Capital Link Services. Um, CLS is a family business started and headquartered right here in Canberra, celebrating its 30th anniversary.
What A Visa Attestation Agency Does
SPEAKER_02And Soriel is the second generation of his family to run the firm. Sorriel. Great having you here. Welcome to the podcast.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much, Greg. Great to be here.
SPEAKER_02Now, you CLS has a really interesting niche market, but some of our listeners might not have actually heard of you. What is it that you do?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. So Capital Link Services is a specialized visa and document attestation agency. So we work with corporate agencies, we work with government departments, we work with people that are traveling from Australia and New Zealand around the world. So similar to a migration agent, but we work the other way around. So we take away the complexities, we cut through the red tape, and we process those visa applications through the embassies here in Canberra, through the Departments of Foreign Affairs in Australia and New Zealand. We're arranging visa applications and documents for use for export documentation, uh company setup, whatever it may be overseas.
SPEAKER_02So how big is that market? Because Aussies can go to a lot of places without needing a visa, right? That's right, that's right.
SPEAKER_00So it's actually quite an interesting market. It's almost like a niche sort of market, but on a very global scale. So depending on the country and depending on, you know, the diplomatic relations or you know the immigration requirements, a lot of places Aussies get caught out that they don't know that they need a visa. So for example, areas in the Middle East, areas throughout Asia, you know, they're surprised that they need a visa application. And a lot of the time those applications have to be submitted in person. So it's quite large, and particularly on a corporate scale as well, where there's a lot of business travelers that are going for, you know, short-term business or long-term postings, that's where we kind of fit into that market.
SPEAKER_02So how big's your team now, Soran?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so we've actually
The Niche Market That Catches People
SPEAKER_00got 14 uh staff across Australia and New Zealand. So we operate our headquarters here in Canberra, we've got nine in Canberra, we've got three in Sydney, one in Auckland and one in Wellington.
SPEAKER_02So, how did the business start?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's actually a great story. So uh my father, Naim, who's one of the directors, was actually a visa officer in one of the embassies here in Canberra, and found that there was a need, or found that there was, you know, often applications that would come in and they were missing documentation or they were missing fees or whatever it may be. And my mother was at home looking after me. I was about a year old. And over dinner one night, he asked her, he said, you know, do you know anyone who might be able to do this, you know, to help these companies and to help these people? And she said, I'll do it. Um, so basically the business started with a small desk at home and a Mazda 121 bubble with some sign writing on the back and me and the baby seat in the back. And from day one, you know, um, we were delivering applications to embassies and getting um visas for people and documents attested.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So you've literally spent your whole life in the business starting out as a baby in the back of Mama's car. Um, when did you start to get sort of um more properly involved yourself?
SPEAKER_00Well, I would always come to the office after school or after childcare, you know, during school holidays, I would um go and spend time there, and I do really, you know, medial tasks like filing and stapling and whatnot, but I would also go out with our delivery representatives to embassies. So a lot of the embassies here that we still work with, they've known me and they've seen me kind of grow up. Um, so I've been in the business my whole life, and then I finished my year 12 exams, finished on a Friday, no such thing as a gap year in my family, started work full-time on a Monday, and I've been there ever since. So 13 years now for myself.
SPEAKER_02That's that's amazing. And are your parents still involved?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so you know, they're still very passionate about the business, and I rely heavily on their expertise and their, you know, their understanding as well. So it's really nice to be able to um have that sort of open relationship with them with regards to, you know, how do I handle this situation? Because a lot of the time things have happened in the past, but it's all about now modernizing and and moving into the future with them as well.
SPEAKER_02And what about your kids? Sorry, you you're getting them involved in the business?
SPEAKER_00Well, no kids just yet, but absolutely, you know, if that's the path that they want to take, I'd love to have them on board, you know? It'd be great. Let's see see how you go.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Um, now the business itself is is growing a lot, right? You um
A Family Business Origin Story
SPEAKER_02you now operate in um Canberra, Sydney, Auckland. You've recently opened in Wellington. Um, what's what's prompted that increased presence in New Zealand? You've been in Auckland for a while, right? But the Wellington one is new.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's right. So we highly specialise in uh the GCC market, so the Middle East, and we work a lot with the gigaprojects and the mega projects that are happening in the Middle East, particularly in Saudi Arabia. So through our, I guess, our growth and our understanding of our industry and being able to provide those services, um, we were recognized in the late 2000s by the Saudi Arabian Embassy here as a recognized agent and an authorised agent. So that meant all applications came through us or through another agency. And because of that relationship and because of that growth, when the Saudi Arabian government opened an embassy and a consulate in New Zealand, they recommended that we go and open up and set up as an agent over there. So we operated in Auckland for the last 15 years, but we found that it is so important, just like here in Canberra, with access to the diplomatic missions and to the embassies, that it's so important that we're there in the capital of New Zealand as well, right on the doorstep of the embassies and the government departments, to be able to provide, you know, faster turnaround, to be able to go and speak on behalf of our clients in person at the embassy. You know, it's so important to have those personal face-to-face relationships as opposed to email or phone. And that's where the customer service side, and that's you know, the real core of our business, is being able to have those people relationships to move things along and to get things done. So we recently opened in Wellington, um, two months now, which has been great.
SPEAKER_02And how's it going? Two months in.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's good. It's um, you know, one of the things that I find whenever we sort of take a step somewhere, there's always a lot of concern or worry that it might not happen as quick as it does, but actually we kind of hit the ground running. You know, we just started with a couple of visa applications here and there, were able to resolve an issue with an embassy. We won't be able we weren't able to contact for like a year. Um, so you know, while I was in Wellington, I was able to go and knock on the door and and just build a relationship straight away. And so that helps our clients and it helps us to be able to move things through quicker. So it's been good so far.
SPEAKER_02Have you got any advice for businesses you might be looking to expand into Wellington or the New Zealand market more generally?
SPEAKER_00I think New Zealand is so similar to Australia in a lot of ways that it makes it easy already to be able to just go in. It's so easy to set up a company over there underneath an Australian registered company. Um, conducting business with a lot of the government departments there is a lot easier, I find, in some aspects than maybe here in Australia. So getting
Why Expand To Wellington
SPEAKER_00over there, being able to get there so quickly, it's only three hours away from Sydney, um, helps us to really address issues quickly, to be able to step into the market. And it is, you know, for our industry, it was almost like an untapped market. And it has been for so long that we're now really picking up a lot of, you know, corporate clients over there that didn't know that there was a provider like us. So being able to step out into there, take you know our training and our understanding from Australia and move it into New Zealand, and I think they really appreciate that there as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, excellent. And what do you see as being the future of the Kiwi operation? Do you think it's going to sort of expand to something like the scale of your of your Aussie one or is it just a smaller market?
SPEAKER_00Well, it is a smaller market, but we find that you know there are a lot of things over there and there are a lot of processes that are so similar, but they're almost untapped in the same way that they were here in Australia when we started the business. So it's almost like we're taking our 30 years of experience there and applying it directly with, you know, already having learned a lot of the lessons. So we're able to step in and you know, being able to open a second office in New Zealand has been really instrumental for us. Um so we'd love to grow that operation, step more into the government sector as well, and and provide those services to those clients.
SPEAKER_02Sorry, look, CLS has been going now for 30 years. That's that's a long time. It's a massive commitment, it's a great success story. What's been the secret to that success?
SPEAKER_00I think really when it comes down to and you know, seeing the business and seeing my parents running the business, it really comes down to customer service. Like we can have the best processes, we can have the fastest turnaround times, but it's on those days where someone is, you know, they've got a flight booked, you know, they didn't know that they needed a visa or their documents, and being able to just take that call at maybe one or two in the morning when dealing with international markets and and being able to put a person on the phone who can understand the situation, understand the need of the person, that is really instrumental. So I think customer service is one of the most important things in our business, no matter the scale, no matter what it is, and we're really focused on that across our team. So I find that the lessons that I've learned from my parents and you know, carrying down throughout the business is really that we have to be there for the client. We have to treat it as if it's our own passport or our own document. You know, these these people are putting their trust in us with really sensitive documents, like a passport or a qualification or a marriage certificate, whatever it may be. And to be able to take that and handle it with care and get it to where it needs to be is so instrumental.
SPEAKER_02And there must be risks with that though. I mean, how do you manage sort of careers and so forth? Do you do you get issues there from a security?
SPEAKER_00Well, we do, we do, and you know, there's always challenges there, but we've got some really great suppliers that we work with and building those relationships over the year. I remember one time we had a uh a document that actually went missing and it showed up in you know a parcel bin in Western Sydney. But to be able to just jump on the phone, speak to our suppliers, and have such
The Customer Service Advantage
SPEAKER_00good relationships with them that they were searching all throughout Sydney Airport and and every single terminal and every everywhere to be able to find that. And we we don't stop, you know. I these sorts of things happen, but to be able to jump in quickly and sort it out is really instrumental, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So what's your biggest challenge at the moment in the business?
SPEAKER_00I think one of the really key things is um this war that's going on in the Middle East has really impacted the business, and it's impacted, I guess, um people's confidence in travelling to the region. So, you know, we face these global challenges, and even being, you know, a small Canberra business, we still feel the impact of you know large-scale events like COVID, like wars, like whatever it may be. So being able to quickly adapt and pivot and you know provide additional services or or look at different things is really important for us. We've actually just recently started to scale up our services more, where we're not just processing out of Australia and New Zealand, but we've got a network of partners around the world that we have built good relationships with, where we're now processing people that are going into the Middle East from Kazakhstan, from Vietnam, from China, from India, Brazil. So we're working with those partners and we're being more global to be able to provide these services to our large corporate clients and to people that are going into the region, and they can trust that they've got an Australian registered company with that Australian quality that's providing those services globally.
SPEAKER_02And that's all happening out of little old Canberra. Yeah, absolutely. It's pretty cool, yeah. Yeah, um, it's it's really good to hear these stories because it just shows how um little Canberra businesses can really sort of punch above their weight and take on some of those global markets.
SPEAKER_00I I absolutely agree, and I think you know there are some great companies here in Canberra that are providing, you know, really large-scale services to government, to corporate clients, and it's just I think that's the Canberra spirit, is you know, we're small, but we still fight, we still get through it, and um, yeah, it's inspiring. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02So, what does the future hold, Sariel? What's next for CLS and what's the long-term vision?
SPEAKER_00Well, I I've always said I'd love to open up in the Middle East and I'd love to be there, you know, in the region where we're focused, but it's also around you know, scaling our services and and letting people know that there's a provider that can do all of these things that they may be paying, you know, big ticket prices for with um with some really large corporate companies. So putting Canberra on the map for these services, putting, you know, Auckland and Wellington and Sydney, you know, the CLS operations and growing that further, you know, we'd love to operate out of Melbourne and Perth and you know, Brisbane, wherever it may be, to provide really good service to grow on a global scale, but still keep Canberra as our home.
Global Shocks And A Worldwide Network
SPEAKER_02Excellent. And the market is big enough for that? I mean, it is a fairly niche market, but you you think it's big enough to kind of grow grow your staff like that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think the thing is people don't know that they need a provider until they're in that position. And so my advice to people is reach out before, you know, don't get caught at the border. The last thing that you want is to be flying, you know, all this time and effort has been booked on, you know, getting to that important business meeting in another country and realizing you can't get through the border or you don't have the right documents on hand. So, you know, being able to step in, get everything right, get the compliance, cut through the red tape and the bureaucracy, that's what we do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And good to know, I think, for some of our listeners, perhaps I think in many cases, uh, tell me if I'm wrong here, that you might well be able to go on holiday to places on your Aussie passport or your Kiwi passport, but if you're travelling for business, it is a different story.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, absolutely. And a lot of people are going overseas for work now into the Middle East, and so being able to have the right advice, you know, the first time done right, is so instrumental and so key to, you know, a successful trip. You know, an Australian passport is a very powerful thing, same with a New Zealand passport, but there are some little tricks that you know people might not know.
SPEAKER_02Can we talk a little bit about the Middle East and what's going on up there? And I know you traveled uh relatively recently up to Saudi Arabia. What's your perception of of that country and the changes that are happening there?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's it's actually quite amazing. And you know, there's probably a bit of perception around it, but when I actually went, so you know, processed thousands of visas and and to actually go and to see the scale and to see you know how the projects are going over there, how how many Aussie expats are in the Middle East is really impressive. Um when I went over there, it was very different to what I imagined. Um I found that the people were very accommodating, people love um you know, foreign businesses, they love Australians and Kiwis over in the Middle East as well. Um, very accommodating, very hospitable people as well. Business over there, you know, almost no tax or you know, relatively low tax. Um it's very easy, the systems are all connected with each other, and we're working with some of the projects out of the Middle East, like um there's a giga project being run by the Saudi Public Investment Fund called Kadilla,
Saudi Arabia Shifts And Business Upside
SPEAKER_00and it's uh you know, an entertainment capital about 45 minutes out of Riyadh, and this is a huge project. You know, they're bringing Six Flags Um, you know, entertainment park, they're bringing uh Aqua Arabia, they've got you know so many different things like a Formula One track with a 21-story high, you know, bend hanging over a cliff. Like it's just things that you know we might not have seen or might not have even imagined that are actually happening over there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and that's quite exciting because places like Saudi have a reputation perhaps in the in the past anyway, of being quite closed to um some of those modern entertainments and and and so forth. But it's really happening, the place is reforming.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, absolutely. And now you've got live entertainment that's happening, you've got you know big concerts and you've got headline artists that are performing over there, and it's uh what I really like about it is they're still like looking after their heritage and they're they're maintaining that, but they are modernizing, they are opening up, which is really nice to see. And you know, props to the Saudi Arabian government and the people over there, they've done a fantastic thing, which is really impressive. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And with um very little tax and and ease of doing business with government, there's some good lessons there, perhaps for Australia. Do you think we can apply some of those learnings into the market here?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. And I think you know, one of the really impressive things that Saudi Arabia has done is their diversification from primarily oil and minerals is into you know large-scale investments through their public investment funds. And you know, here in Australia we have such um excellent commodities and we have such a large scale of it that you know, if we were to apply the same sort of principles and and the same way of operating, that we could really um do a lot out of Australia here. And even um whilst I was over in Saudi Arabia, we attended a a conference with one of the government departments and they were talking about how they co-fund you know business ventures up to three billion Saudi real, and you know, there's 18 months of uh no repayments, and they're really encouraging businesses to get over there and to to get started and to get set up. So I think um if Australian businesses are interested in that market that's absolutely you know a viable market and they they love Australian technology and Australian growth and Australian products.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And from a consumer perspective over there, um, what's the consumer market like?
SPEAKER_00Well, I think Saudi Arabia has a population of around 25 or 27 million people, and um, you know, with a large expat market as well. But the other section or the other part to it is that they're so geographically located, you know, between Europe, between Asia, that accessing these different markets is is just a no-brainer from the that area.
SPEAKER_02Excellent. Some good opportunities there by the sounds of it for uh for Aussie businesses. Um we're we're recording this in May of um 2026. Uh you're celebrating your 30th anniversary um next week. Uh what's um where's the business going to be in another 30 years' time?
SPEAKER_00Oh, I you know, I really hope that um, you know, my kids in the future, if they're interested in the business that they're carrying on and they're sitting here and they're doing a podcast with, you know, our predecessors to come, Greg, but um, you know, really just sticking to the the core principles, which are customer service, quality, you know, and being someone or being the company that's there that's you know got a human aspect in such a bureaucratic process, it makes such a difference. So we'd love to be on a on a much more global scale, working with governments, working with not only the Australian government and the New Zealand government, but other governments around the world, and being able to continue to help people and businesses get set up overseas and travel and you know and problem solve for them as well.
SPEAKER_02Excellent. Sorry, old Ibrahim,
Long Term Vision And Closing
SPEAKER_02uh, director of Capital Link Services. Uh, thank you so much for joining me here on the Canberra Business Podcast. It's been great having a chat, great learning about the business, great learning about some of those opportunities for Aussie businesses in uh Saudi Arabia. And of course, great to be celebrating your 30th anniversary with you. So I wish you all the very best for the next 30 years.
SPEAKER_00Thank you.
SPEAKER_02Thanks for joining me. This has been the Canberra Business Podcast. I'm Greg Harford, your host from the Canberra Business Chamber. Um, I've been talking to Sorrel Ibrahim from CLS Capital Link Services, and don't forget to follow us on your favourite podcast platform for future episodes of the Canberra Business Podcast. We'll catch you next time.