A life in market intelligence and multiculturalism

Multiculturalism combined with living in different countries has been part of my life since I was born. My M-

Brain/Esmerk career in competitive and market intelligence over the last 30 years has been a continuation of

this into my adult maturing years.

As a young boy I was brought up in Moscow where my father worked at the British Embassy. Later in my

teenage existence, I spent some of my vacation time working for a landscape gardening firm in Bonn among

fellow European and Turkish workers. My international experience continued in the UK at the London School

of Economics where over 40% of both students and academic staff came from overseas.

Starting my first real long term job as a junior analyst at Esmerk in 1985 in South London I monitored the

international business news in the UK. As a member of an English minority, I was part of an international team

which included a Middle East desk staffed by an Iranian and an Iraqi - at the time the two countries were at war

with each other (however we had no real arguments or physical conflicts in the office I must emphasize). We

also had a Finn – Varpu who like myself all these years later, is still with us – like me here in Würzburg, old wine

growing Prince-Bishopric city in northern Bavaria.

In 1986 I moved to Hong Kong where for the next four years I focused on sales in this bustling former British

colony. While in Hong Kong I also travelled in the Asia/Pacific region – presenting the value of tailored market

intelligence to Europeans, Americans and local Asian managers in locations as diverse as Singapore, Beijing and

Manila as well as Hong Kong itself. My multicultural understanding deepened when I met my Hong Kong

Chinese wife, Liza Fong Yu Sitt. Practical experiences of Chinese life have included eating snake soup to stay

warm in the winter time (yes it can be cold sometimes in Hong Kong), enjoying the Cantonese tradition of Dim-

Sum (Chinese dumplings and little savoury/ sweetmeat delights) and the giving and receiving of red packets at

Chinese New Year.

In 1991 I moved to the UK where I continued my career in market intelligence sales until 2006. In this time UK

staff numbers rose from 10 to around 60 staff at its peak when the Reading office became a European and

Americas international hub, sharing this global role with our Kuala Lumpur Asian office in Malaysia. Along with

the English, I can think of the following nationalities we had in Reading: Polish, Portuguese, Slovak, Croatian,

Romanian, Czech, Brazilian, Argentinian, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Irish, German, Greek and Turkish. This melting

pot of intelligent inquiring analysts meant that social occasions were always fun – whether enjoying pints in an

English pub or discussing international football tournaments, holidays in southern Europe, Berlusconi’s politics

in Italy or Argentina’s position on The Falklands (Las Malvinas).

Since 2006 I have been based at our Würzburg office - not as multicultural as Reading or KL. However it is

more diversified than you might think. Among the 14 staff we have an English person (me), a Finn (Varpu

already mentioned, married to our Franconian Chief Analyst / Production Manager) and staff from Baden

Württemberg, Saxony Anhalt, Munich and of course Franconia itself. Regional identities, accents and dialects

in Germany have meaning – after all Germany has only been united since 1871 or 1990 depending on what

date in history you wish to take.

We are very lucky to have the cultural diversity which is part of our M-Brain DNA. We are a global market

intelligence insight company – we reflect that in our offices around the world.

Andrew Garrett 17.02.2015