For as long as I can remember I have always wanted to be a writer. And I have long recognised that I both enjoy writing and am relatively good at it.I was born in Sydney, Australia, but grew up in a few different places. Certainly some of my most formative years were spent in Australia, and that is the country and culture I identify most closely with, as well as the only passport I travel on.

But I also spent extended periods growing up in places like the United Kingdom, Germany and Switzerland.English, German and French are by far the languages I feel most comfortable speaking, roughly in that order. I also speak Swiss German, a language I really love because it is spoken by relatively few people in this world, so that speaking it makes me part of an exclusive little club that is actually not that easy to gain entry to.In my adult years I ventured to more exotic places, relocating to, living and working in countries like Singapore, Indonesia, South Africa, the Philippines and China. As a result, I also speak Indonesian and Mandarin Chinese, although not as well as I would like to.I also spent two years in the United States, in the years following the Global Financial Crisis, which was really eye-opening for me, revealing just how different life in America is to how it is depicted in so much of popular culture.I think this diversity of places I’ve lived in has given me a certain perspective that is not immediately available to others without it, which is ultimately something I am incredibly grateful for.But it’s not just having lived in about ten countries that has coloured my outlook. I’ve also had the good fortune to travel to and work briefly in over thirty countries since I embarked upon my career as an international trade policy professional.The first country I travelled to in this capacity was the Kyrgyz Republic, followed by Uzbekistan, followed by Azerbaijan and then Kazakhstan and Tajikistan.Early in my career I spent quite a bit of time in the Central Asian republics, learning some Russian (which I have mostly forgotten), and becoming familiar with these places and the people who live there.

During this time I also ended up travelling to and working briefly in places such as Ukraine, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, Myanmar and Bangladesh.But i also had the privilege of working in the Middle-East and Africa, with repeated trips to Syria before the country descended into civil war, in addition to Jordan and the UAE, as well as a number of sub-Saharan African countries, starting with Mozambique, then including Tanzania, Namibia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Zambia.Today, I live and work in Geneva, Switzerland, a country I actually left many years ago but returned to recently.I work for the World Economic Forum, the organization that convenes the famous Annual Meeting in Davos. It’s a great place to work and I essentially have a blank slate on which to develop, articulate and execute my ideas on how best to go about improving the state of the world, the Forum’s rallying cry.

The issues I work on at the WEF are digital trade, and trade and geopolitics.My approach to these two areas of work are without doubt informed by many years spent working with governments in many developing countries, as well as my time working in a Chinese technology company that suddenly and quite unwittingly found itself on the frontlines of the still unfolding geopolitical, strategic and technological rivalry between the United States and China, namely Huawei.Here is an interview I did in 2020 on the Johnson Government’s decision (later reversed) to grant limited access to Huawei equipment as part of the UK Government’s 5G network buildout.

I believe we stand today at an important inflection point for humanity. One at which all countries need to stand up firmly and forcefully for their values, while at the same time shunning confrontation in favor of cooperation.A big part of this is correcting false narratives and setting the record straight on the world we actually live in rather than the world many concerted and furtive interests would prefer to portray to us.I intend to use the platform afforded me by Medium to do precisely this and in doing so, to hopefully learn from other writers here, who like me, have their own perspectives, experiences and insights to share.For me, writing on Medium is an attempt to seek facts and disseminate a more evidence-based narrative with those who likewise have an interest in embracing truth.Please leave a comment or any other feedback (such as a “clap”) if you like what you’ve read or have any thoughts you would like to share.