I was born in the sixties, so it’s no surprise that I gravitated toward books like Kerouac’s On the Road, Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley, Michener’s The Drifters, and most of Hemingway’s works. The members of the Beat Generation became known as bohemian hedonists, celebrating non-conformity and spontaneous creativity. I relate to that spirit — though rather than a Dharma Bum, I see myself more as a Happy Warrior.
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
“Song of the Open Road” by Walt Whitman
As a teenager, hitchhiking across Europe and living on a kibbutz taught me that the road itself is a test of wisdom. Those early adventures shaped everything that followed — a career that took me from Sydney to Amsterdam to Singapore and beyond, and a life lived with curiosity as a compass.
What stands out most looking back aren’t the job titles or the boardrooms, but the richness of the experiences in between. I trained as a zoologist in Sydney, became a Financial Controller in Amsterdam, earned my credentials as an Information Security Auditor, and somewhere along the way found myself at INSEAD and Harvard. Each chapter felt less like a career move but more like the next leg of a journey.
I’ve always had a deep appreciation for technology — not as an end in itself, but as a tool for freedom. Transparency and agility are core values for me, which is why I remain a passionate supporter of open source software. Lowering costs is a nice bonus, but the real appeal is the freedom to get under the hood — to adapt, extend, and innovate.
When I’m not out on my racing bike chasing the next climb, you’ll find me behind my Linux laptop, still exploring, still learning.
The road, it turns out, doesn’t end. It just gets more interesting.
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