I’m a French expatriate who has lived outside France since 1986 and has no plans to stop. I’ve called the UK, Japan, Aruba, Hong Kong and Bangkok home at various points, and each place has left something on me. Not always what I expected, and not always what I wanted. But something.
I lost both my parents young, played rugby longer than my body would recommend, and spent a decade inside a large Japanese corporation before deciding I’d rather build something of my own. So I did. I started a toy distribution business in the UK called Asobi, grew it from nothing to a business worth talking about, then lost it in circumstances that taught me more about people than any book ever could. I picked myself up, moved to Hong Kong, started again, and kept going. That’s the short version.
Rugby gave me more than I gave it. I played in France, the UK and Japan, for clubs that were wildly different in culture and united in the same appreciation for a hard tackle and a cold drink afterwards. The game teaches you to trust the person next to you. That lesson has been more useful in business than anything I studied.
These days I live in Bangkok, which has been home since 2018 and suits me rather well. It’s loud, chaotic, unapologetically itself, and it doesn’t pretend to be something it isn’t. I respect that in a city. My wife Jovelyn runs a fashion jewellery business here called ako & sila. My son Rémi, half French, half Japanese, is studying in Japan. And Sarra, our rescue dog, keeps the house from feeling too quiet.
This blog is where I think out loud. It’s more candid than my LinkedIn, less polished than I probably should be, and entirely my own view. If that appeals to you, stay a while.
No passion, no point.