potato oligarch
(against a canvas used by itinerant photographers in Czarist Russia)

I can't be described as having a career, more a succession of occupations that seemed interesting at the time. After an MBA from INSEAD I sold stencil duplicators in Eastern Europe before moving to Pittsburgh to join a bank. I spent fifteen years in New York, London and Athens, doing business at one time or another in most countries of Europe, Middle East and Africa. Athens soon became central to our family's life. When we were transferred in 1980, we left behind a house on the island of Evia, the subject of It's All Greek To Me!

In 1985 my fortieth birthday present to myself was to quit what V.S.Naipaul calls the humiliation of employment. The main reason was to write full time. For ten years after graduating from Oxford University I  reviewed the modern French novel and then science fiction for the Times Literary Supplement, the TLS. I tried my hand at literary fiction but, like the acquaintance of Doctor Johnson, who tried to be a philosopher, cheerfulness was always breaking through. I published three comic novels – Sail or Return, The Monogamist and Thanks, Eddie!

After leaving the bank, I was still curious to know what effect the management techniques I had learned actually had on the people who worked for me. I went back to work as a typist and clerk and messenger in the kind of offices I managed. The result was Management Mole (subsequently republished as Brits At Work) and a brief career of consultant and writer on people management.

Another lasting interest, from working in many countries and with colleagues of many nationalities, was the differences in how people work together and how they can be reconciled in global markets. In 1992 I published Mind Your Manners, a guide to the business cultures of the new Europe. This launched another career as consultant and writer on cross-cultural management. Mind Your Manners has recently gone through a third revised edition and has been published in a score of languages from Japanese to Latvian.

Meanwhile I tried my hand at various entrepreneurial capers.  INBIO Ltd is an environmental protection and remediation company I set up in partnership with an institute of biochemistry of the Russian Academy of Science. It imports into the west advanced biotechnology from Russia through partnerships with Western companies. In 1995 I set up and implemented a project to control the spread of water hyacinth on Lake Victoria, Tanzania.