Of Australian and Croatian nationality Joe was born in Croatia and as a 7 month old baby his family migrated to Australia. Raised and educated in Australia, and due to his father’s interests in renovating houses, Joe attended 14 different primary schools and 3 different high schools. First job was as a potato peeler at a fish and chips shop in Ballarat, which progressed into a part-time farmhand job with a large potato, cattle and sheep farmer for 2.5 years before attending Deakin University (Geelong Campus). Joe worked two nightshifts a week at a plastic moulds injection factory and occasionally doing van deliveries for nearly 3 years. Weekends were spent working with his brother’s furniture removals business. Joe got to graduate with a bachelor of commerce degree and majors in marketing and management information systems.

Applying the bachelor degree, Joe’s first professional position was to manage a small promotional agency in Ballarat producing business/corporate promotional products (i.e. t-shirts, caps, pens, business cards, logo designs etc.). Business steadily grew as did staff members then the owner sold the business to a competitor. Next job was at a wire springs factory, working on the production floor for 3 months and then one year as the marketing co-ordinator developing marketing strategies and computer based systems. Was becoming an engineer developing springs for customers and sought a change by signing up for Australian Volunteers Abroad. Was sent to Changsha, Hunan Province China to teach Introduction to Marketing and Basic Economics subjects for two years at Changsha Railway University (now called Central South University) and established a vast network of relationships.

Upon return to Australia Joe worked as a lecturer co-ordinating the marketing research subject at Ballarat University; a highlight was co-ordinating the Sovereign Hill Living Museum – Customer Satisfaction Survey. Being down-graded to part-time, he then worked at Outer Eastern TAFE in Melbourne teaching customs, controls and functions and international trade and documentation subjects.

With the wealth of relationships in China, Joe followed his passions, stopped lecturing and established a small Asian handicraft import and retail business with three buyers in China and Indonesia, and three involved in retail in Australia. Each product came with a bar code, picture of the artisans who produced it and brief description. In addition, he also imported Chinese made motorcycles with side cars for resale in Australia. Business was good until handicraft stock was delayed at customs in China for three months, and the retail premises had empty shelves for Christmas. Seven people were involved in the team, all in tears when we closed the doors, as it was a viable business. Joe sold the motorcycle business.

Joe and academic colleagues from China, (Prof. Wang Li Ren and David Wilkinson) upon numerous discussions decided to commence the Sino-Cultural Exchange Association (SCEA Inc.) a non-profit organisation for collaboration between Australian and China in Education, Health, Arts and Trade. Commencing with teacher exchanges – in 2 years of operating, 37 Australian teachers volunteered to teach in Hunan Province through SCEA Inc. assistance. In health, we corroborated with the Hunan Tradition Chinese Medicine and Matarial Medica Institute and developed a one month introduction course in traditional Chinese medicine for English speakers. Building our own teaching and accommodation buildings to accommodate 35 students in a forest outside of Changsha in Hunan Province with support from the tourism bureau. We also arranged medical doctor delegation exchanges between various hospitals in Victoria, Australia and Hunan Province, China.

In the arts, we conducted 4 reciprocal artisan exchanges and established a one month Chinese arts programme involving ceramics, water-based painting, calligraphy and sculpture. In trade, we arranged for several reciprocal trade delegation exchanges although these were mostly tied to health products. This all came to a screeching halt when a rouge tourism official from the tourism bureau sold our health training facility and fled China. Every official we turned to for support simply shrugged their shoulders and said the purchaser bought it in good faith and sorry that it happened this way.

Feeling rather battered and bruised, Joe vowed never again to do business in China and obtained work as a lecturer in marketing at Latrobe University, at the Bendigo campus. The faculty at the Bendigo campus was instructed by senior executives to become a regional focussed education and research business and technology faculty, the business department decided to focus on the South-East Asia region. The department established tertiary business education relationships in Malaysia, Singapore and Hong-Kong. Over the years of development, the teaching capacity of the brilliant 28 business academic staff became stretched, as more SE Asian programmes were being added. However, even with the increased load, consistent planning of travel arrangements, grading and lecture deliveries off and on-shore, all the academics loved what they were doing. Joe’s primary subject deliveries were in introduction to marketing and international marketing, although off-shore Joe also coordinated subjects in selling and sales management, electronic marketing, strategic marketing and consumer behaviour. Each academic covering for the other when one became too overloaded; it was the best team environment that Joe has ever worked in.

Generating large income streams, Latrobe University executives in Melbourne took notice. They revoked the autonomous relationship previously given to the Bendigo campus and demanded that we focus our business education and research on rural regional Australia. Joe’s dream job turned into a nightmare as within six months, 14 academics resigned and left the campus. With two infant children and a Japanese wife the last year of working at Latrobe became unbearable. Understaffed, Joe was asked to coordinate 22 marketing subjects both on- and off-shore. Then Joe’s wife (after 15 months of leave without pay from UNHCR) was offered a position in Tanzania. After 4 years of working with Latrobe and a wife who earned twice his salary, Joe resigned to become a house dad in Kigoma, Tanzania.

In Tanzania, Joe worked on his master’s degree by research (part-time) whilst keeping his two children alive in an area with a life expectancy of 39 years. With extremely limited electricity, water, health and road infrastructure – life was difficult. After completely renovating a local house to a suitable standard for a family with infant children and employing nine security and house staff, Joe befriended some local woodcarvers whilst commissioning some furniture to be made. These twelve Rastafarian woodcarvers were living in extremely poor and squalid conditions and Joe asked if they wanted marketing advice on how to improve their business. With giant smiles on their faces they gleefully accepted his offer. Every Wednesday afternoon for two hours Joe taught them the basics of marketing. Of the 8,000 students Joe had taught in nine years of lecturing in marketing these 12 woodcarvers remain to be his most eager and best students that he has ever had.

After two years of living in Kigoma, Tanzania; Joe’s wife obtained another posting in Geneva, Switzerland. Settling in the French side where rents were cheaper and we could afford a yard for the children to play in; Joe finished his master’s thesis and the kids started to go to school Joe was again free to find full-time work.

Contacting UNHCR about the potential of doing Private Sector Fund Raising work, a person contacted Joe about applying for a temporary Budget Associate position for three months within Programme and Budget Services. At interview Joe explained that he was a marketer and not experienced in finance but that he was a fast learner and would do his best to fill the gap for 3 months if employed. Being available immediately Joe started the temporary assignment (T/A) with three others and rapidly learnt the new financial system that had recently been put in place. Initially, he was clerically and administratively responsible for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) budgets, three months passed quickly. Then twelve consecutive contracts were signed and completed within UNHCR however, the roles changed. From MENA to the America’s Bureau budgeting responsibilities, then responsible for the global emergency Operational Reserves and finally assisting with the development and roll-out of a custom designed Results Based Management and Financial software package known as FOCUS. The FOCUS position was assigned due to Joe’s knowledge and degree in Management Information Systems as well as his extensive knowledge of the current financial and budgetary system. What started as 3 month contract turned into 2.5 years of working with UNHCR. Then his spouse was posted to work in Budapest, Hungary.

Relocating to Budapest and having the kids settled in to their new International French school, Joe finished building a weekend house on a very small vineyard in Zagreb, Croatia and then sought to find professional work. Joe undertook some lecturing in marketing at the Budapest College of Communication and Business, however the transport costs to and from the institution was more than what he earned for lecturing and therefore it was not financially feasible. At a funeral of an uncle in Croatia, Joe met a distant cousin who was involved with a new start-up company in Ptuj, Slovenia and work discussions commenced.

Joe worked for LCS d.o.o. as a marketing adviser for four years developing corporate marketing plans as well as country specific marketing plans whilst advising the young board of directors on all marketing related aspects of the business. With limited funds the start-up developed three innovative products LCS wheelbarrows, LCS ladders and LCS tables with a patented levelling technology that the products level themselves regardless of the angle of the terrain on which they were placed. The products was perfect, however the young team did not want to manufacture in China due to fear of copyright infringements and therefore the cost of manufacturing in Europe was prohibitive and only a few retail chains were willing to support such an expensive product in their value chains. Eventually the company could not financially continue and became insolvent.

After four years of living in Budapest and working with the LCS start-up, Joe’s wife was again re-posted, this time to Yangon, Myanmar for four years. This re-ignited an old passion of Joe’s in handicrafts. His wife always knew of his desire to conduct PhD research on the marketing of traditional handicrafts and this was his once in a lifetime opportunity. Joe was enrolled at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia as a PhD student with his marketing mentor Dr Mehdi Taghian (from La Trobe University lecturing days), as his supervisor. A long term dream come true – studying under the wise and brilliant supervision of Mehdi, at a renowned institution (Deakin University) and on the topic of Joe’s choice – ‘Artisans sustainable livelihoods and the marketing of Myanmar handicrafts’. Day-by-day, month-by-month and year-by-year Joe undertook his PhD studies. A truly amazing experience which contained many moments of sheer joy and pleasure as well as many moments of stress and tears.

During the course of doing his PhD in Myanmar Joe was approached by the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) to undertake consultancies in marketing strategy development for their Fostering pro-poor and inclusive MSME development in Myanmar programme within the Myanmar handicraft industries. Once research, recommendations and report were produced UNIDO again asked Joe to implement parts of his market strategy amongst the Myanmar lacquerware cluster such as developing a website, conducting quantitative airport survey of lacquerware tourist customers and delivery of marketing training for two different handicraft clusters.

Furthermore, during the course of Joe’s PhD research, Luxembourg Development (LuxDev) was conducting an extensive human resource plan for the tourism industry. LuxDev employed Joe to conduct qualitative focus group research to discover the primary issues regarding human resources within Myanmar’s handicraft industries and to establish recommendations for its development. The Myanmar Ministry of Hotels and Tourism published Joe’s report.

With data collected and analysed the PhD research turned to thesis writing and after 4 years of living in Myanmar, Joe’s spouse was posted back to Geneva. This meant saying goodbye to four loving Myanmar staff who stayed with us throughout this time; a personal assistant/driver, a carpenter, a maid and a gardener who made our lives and stay in Myanmar the most pleasurable we have ever experienced as international expats. It was sad to say goodbye to Myanmar. Now a new life awaits.

Back to living in Geneva, the children now face their final years of high school at the International School of Geneva whilst Joe finalised his thesis writing. After a year of writing and editing Joe finally submitted his thesis for examination in October 2018. With the thesis completed, Joe is now looking to commence a new chapter in his life and career of living on the outskirts of Geneva, in France; either doing consultancies in developing countries on sustainable livelihoods, market systems development or entrepreneurial/start-up market development, doing project work in craft sector development or lecturing in marketing.