My name is John Florey. I was born and raised in London in a family that originated from Burma (now called Myanmar) when it was part of British India. This background has given me an interesting perspective on life and its events. I was sent to boarding school in the UK, first to Orley Farm and then onto Harrow, with summer school jaunts in Switzerland. My tertiary education was at the University of London, where I read Law followed by a second undergraduate degree at Cambridge, where I was meant to have read Land Economy but played a lot of rugby. Much later, I enrolled on an Executive MBA at Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, ‘the mighty Imperial’ as it’s now colloquially called. The culmination of that resulted in, from what had started off as an entrepreneurship final year project, raising £1.2 million and becoming a public company.

My first foray into the world of commerce started at age seventeen. A school friend, in our last term, won £2,000 in the then Times newspaper Portfolio competition. He merrily spent half of it but I persuaded him to invest the other half in a business and together we started ‘Man Friday’. We didn’t really know what we were going to do, so we decided we’d do everything from walking the dog, to cleaning, to serving drinks at private parties. Our old school uniforms made decent waiters’ outfits. It lasted about a year, and in that time, I learnt the basics on company formation, cash flow and that you really do have to file accounts. My friend then went off to the USA for university and I went onto read for a law degree.

As I concentrated more on the sporting and social life at school, my ‘A’ level grades were not too good. My Father suggested I read Law via the University of London External Degree programme, so I enrolled. That is when I realised what a great business education is. Due to the fact that the External Degree is a self-study degree, enterprising businessmen have teamed up with academics to develop private university colleges which provide the lectures and tutorials for the programme. I enrolled into Holborn Law Tutors for mine, basically a private law tutorial school. I was surprised to find six hundred students there, all paying the £5,000 a year tuition fee (which is more like £14,000 today); all paid up front, before term starts. You can do the maths. What a great business model! For anyone interested, I write more about this in the education section.

That first experience and coming from a commercial family gave me a taste for business. I continued at university with a little import-export company I set up, won the contract to furnish the student union, played at investing in penny shares, and did my first property deal. My Father’s industry was property and he had at one time an estate agency in South Kensington, run by his junior partner. I used to spend some time in the office, during university holidays, trying to learn the business. I was a given the title of ‘junior negotiator’. On one occasion, we had an instruction to sell a decrepit basement flat in West Kensington. No-one wanted to show it, so it was given to me as my project. To my surprise, on the third viewing, an applicant put in an offer that was accepted. That was my first commission cheque.

As I lived at home during university, I used to pop round the corner to the local sandwich shop for a break and lunch. I got friendly with the owner and the builders that used to frequent it. On one of those occasions, I asked them what there were working on. It was a Housing Association redevelopment of flats for first time buyers a couple of streets away and because it was for first time buyers, the price was heavily discounted. I got the details, went to see my Father and persuaded him to act as my guarantor for a mortgage. I used my commission check and what money I had made from my import-export company and the penny share trading to pay the deposit. I bought a studio flat for £38,000 and sold it four weeks later for £49,000. I had a splendid time at university that year and bought my first car, a second-hand Volkswagen Beetle in British racing green, which was the only fast thing about it!

I graduated with honours and that, with a bit of rugby thrown in, was sufficient to get me sent up to Cambridge University to read for a second undergraduate degree in Land Economy, which is short hand for the economics of land & property – investment, development and management. It was an enjoyable couple of years doing what undergraduates do. I still dabbled in shares and the odd trading here and there.

On graduation, my first real job was with a national chartered surveying firm, Grimley JR Eve. I did my two years’ practical experience to become a chartered surveyor, specialising in property planning & development. However, a week before my two years were up I quit my job, realising then that there was more to life then holding the end of a tape and jumped on a plane to Singapore. Oh the impetuousness of youth!

I got a lecturing position at Stamford College, through a family friend who owned it. Stamford Colleges is the oldest and, at the time was the largest private college group in South East Asia, with twenty-five thousand students. It was named after Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore (not to be confused with Stanford University in California). As I lectured law, I was allowed to develop the same model of education that I experienced in London, replicating the experience of attending a private law school at the campuses in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. After three delightful years, we had over two hundred students reading Law on the University of London External Degree programme. This, under the mentorship of the owner, is where I learnt about both the business of education and the potential in emerging economies.

After three years in South East Asia, I decided to return to London where I carried on with my import-export company. I sourced & sold a diverse range of products, including Indian bicycles to Ghana, shampoo to Malaysia, golf balls to USA, food hygiene products to Poland and Singapore, as well as advising clients on property investments and looking for more opportunities in the education business.

To keep my hand in education I set up an education agency marketing for and recruiting on behalf of private schools and universities in the UK. But my real interest was setting up and structuring what is now termed ‘transnational programmes’. These are programmes where foreign students can gain UK professional & academic qualifications in their home country.

It funny how opportunities suddenly turn up. A very old family friend was visiting from Burma (Myanmar). [I use the old colonial names due to family history and based on my German friend’s principle on names, in that “You don’t call Germany Deutschland do you!”] At that time Burma was opening up as the Military Junta had come to some arrangement with Aung San Suu Kyi, and the British Government had given the green light for UK businesses to develop that market. The Burmese Government were looking to attract overseas investors and our family friend new the right people in government. I also happened to know a leading city financier who liked exotic opportunities and he came on board and introduced me to Standard Bank London, who in turn structured a U$50 million trade finance package for the country.

Trade finance is a little bit different to just lending money to a government. It’s tied to buying real goods rather than just giving a government money for them to invest in any project they liked. Both have government guarantees but trade finance is more transparent and it’s the best way for a newly emerging economy to gain credibility and improve their ratings in the financial markets.

We received a government invitation to visit, and one of the Directors of the bank and I took a trip to Rangoon (Yangon), which ended up lasting six weeks. We met with a number of government ministries and had a shopping list ranging from fishing trawlers, to commuter buses, to a fizzy drinks plant, mostly sourced from the second hand market. It was not all work though. I did visit the old family home and some of the landmarks like Scott Market, the Shwedagon pagoda, and the Strand Hotel, as well as catching up with those friends of my parents who were still alive.

Just to digress a little, as I think you’ll like this: before I left for my trip I asked my family friend what gifts I should buy as token presents for the dignitaries I was to meet, as this was my first trip to Burma. His reply was ‘Whisky, they love whisky’. So I managed to get twelve bottles of a fine 12 year old blend, but dedicated them with their respective names on the labels. Just to make it more personal. When I arrived at Rangoon Airport, after a brief stopover in Singapore, I was met by my old family friend and introduced to ‘The Major’. ‘The Major’ was in his late fifties or early sixties, and a contemporary of those in power. He was there to furnish the respective introductions. We then drove to my hotel, I gave The Major his gift, which he warmly received and decided to take a shower before our first meeting, which was at the Ministry of Trade in an hour. The bank Director hadn’t yet arrived and was due in the next day, via Hong Kong.

Having showered and shaved, we all got into our chauffeured car and made our way to the Ministry. I decided, in my wisdom, to address the Minister, who we were meeting, in Burmese. I asked both my friend and The General the best way to do this, not having been taught Burmese at home. They both suggested that I say, “migalabah bo moo ji”. So on the way, in the back of the car, I repeated, parrot fashion, this great phrase with which I would make my first impression in the country of my parent’s birth.

We arrived at the Ministry and were ushered into a waiting room, which had at the far end two very ornately carved large teak double doors. After about twenty minutes, the secretary came in to advise us that the Minister was ready to see us. We stood up in front of these grand doors, me in the middle with my gift of whisky, my friend and The Major on either side. As the doors opened, I was met by a sight I will never forget. There stood the Minister, military uniform on top, covered in gold braid and from the waist down a longyi (sarong) and flip flops. He was bordered on each flank by a soldier in similar attire, without the gold, but each holding an AK-47 rifle. I immediately offered my gift and, I thought with eloquence, said the magic phrase “migalabah bo moo ji”. It had the immediate effect of the two guards cocking their rifles and look of shock on the Minister’s face. It immediately registered that I’d made a mistake and looked for support from my friend and The Major. They had disappeared from my side, having taken a step back. The nerves took over and I began to laugh. The Minister then realised that I had no idea what I had said and began to see the amusing side of the event. We shook hands, the tension subsided, my friend and The Major can back into my peripheral vision and we were ushered in to begin our meeting.

The meeting, for a first one, went well. I explained the trade finance offer and if we could be of assistance in purchasing much needed capital equipment and supplies. I was however curious as to what had happened so I mustered up enough courage to ask the Minister, through his interpreter, what he thought of my Burmese. The reply made everything clear. What I had forgotten was that Burmese is a tone language, different tones on the same word means different things. In my excitement I had over emphasized the words, giving them totally different meanings. What I was meant to have said was “A pleasure to meet a great man”; what I actually said was “A pleasure to meet you, you big drunk” and that too with an offering of a bottle of whisky in my hand! That was my first day in Burma. A lesson learnt on many levels.

After the Burma trip, I returned to London and was determined to developing the education side of the business. I wrote to all the Ambassadors of the newly formed countries that emerged from the demise of the Soviet Empire. I got two responses, one from Russia and the other from Azerbaijan. Those two responses became the basis for my education business for the next fifteen years.

In Russia, I was instrumental in developing the first internationally accredited business school – MIRBIS Moscow Business School – with an MBA and numerous transnational programmes, which today has six thousand students. It was also the foundation of another venture into the drinks industry with the national hero of Russia, General Mikhail T. Kalashnikov. You can read all about that in the business start-up section.

In Azerbaijan, with a local partner I have set up the first private international school and have become the country partner to Pearson plc. Pearson plc is the largest education & publishing group in the world and former owner of the Financial Times and Economist.

I have also spent a number of years living in and looking at opportunities in China, although undertaking business  there is not easys,  I structured two successful transnational programmes with Harbin Engineering University and with my chinese ex-partner, we set up a factory manufacturing garden solar lights that sells into the European market. It took five years but we managed to reach a U$1.5 million turnover. I have now exited from that venture.

To sum up, I have realised that there is a strong correlation between the businesses of education, property investment finance and immigration, especially for those wanting to reside or have a base in the UK or Europe after their studies and it’s these industries that I deal with through my companies Global Educational Services and Gentium Advisers.

It’s not all work. I am a firm believer in continuous education. It is one of the reasons I undertook my Executive MBA and courses from  The Gemological Association of Great Britain, in pursuit of my hobby of gemstone collecting, some of which you can see at Florey & Tavernier and at johnflorey.net . I also relish good food, good wine and good company and try and keep up with various sports, especially Eton Fives, time allowing. Recently, I have also turned my hand to dabbling in Art & Photography, some of which you can see here.

I do hope you enjoy my thoughts, views and photographs and I look forward to receiving your comments.

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