I began my career as a journalist at Brisbane’s Courier-Mail, at the time Australia’s third highest-circulation newspaper. After a dozen years, several cities, and too many business reporting fields to count, I landed at JFK in June 2001 as the New York Correspondent for The Australian Financial Review, and spent the following two-and-a-half years covering 9/11, its aftermath, and the shifting of the planet’s tectonic plates.

Wanting to stay in the United States, I freelanced for everyone from The New York Times and Financial Times to Men’s Health, Essence, men’s style australia, and Outside. I was also a columnist for Australia’s biggest-selling newspaper, the Herald-Sun, wrote a book, got my green card, joined Bloomberg, and then McKinsey & Company. The lure of publishing wooed me away from management consulting, freshly armed with PowerPoint and Excel skills, along with enough jargon and acronyms to have the authority to tell people to never use jargon or acronyms. I ran Deloitte’s global content engine, Deloitte Insights; was Global Editor-in-Chief at EY; and have for the past five years been at Chicago-based content marketer LEFF, working behind the scenes to drive content excellence at some of the world’s most prestigious companies.

After a lot of time on the east coast punctuated by a year in Southern California and a few years in Chicago, I’m now back in the greater New York City area. It’s a long way from where I was born. Everything’s a long way from where I was born. But I’ve learned to drive on the wrong side of the road and adjust my accent so people can understand me. In return, I provide living proof Aussies are not genetically wired to surf.