Phnom Penn and meeting back up with a Jedi

Friend, mentor, writer, scientist and general all round good guy, Jehangir and I catch up in Cambodia around 16 years on from our first meeting in Asia and 11 years since we last saw each other. 

 

Jehangir - Grenwich observatory 2003

Jehangir and I originally met in Singapore.  A strange marriage of Daimler with Chrysler and an SAP implementation across 8 countries for Asia Pacific based out of Singapore.  This included all of the logistics management for end-product sales and parts for Mercedes in Asia Pacific at the time.  The project needed some attention.  DaimlerChrysler brought in a specialist project management team from a company in the UK (PCubed); Jehangir was working on the PCubed team.   SAP flew in a project review and recovery specialist from Sydney (me).  We struck up an immediate friendship.     We share a love of timepieces (though I think neither of us are quite of the means to afford the collections we would like).  We had some great and philosophical discussions looking out over the skyline of Singapore, sipping brandy and smoking cigars.  Ah, those were the days.  I hope to re-kindle this over a bottle of purified water and a bowl of Cambodian soup.

Humility is Jehangir’s middle name.  He is so busy focusing on helping others that he rarely, if ever, talks about himself.  Qualified with a doctorate in microbiology from the London School of Tropical Medicine and with a background in leading some of the drug trials research teams for GlaxoSmith Cline, and later leading the Project Management Office function for some large and well-respected pharma research teams,  Jehangir is master of reflection and re-invention. 

007 Cambodian style. Move over Daniel Craig

In the time I have known him he has been a Project Management specialist, a budding author, a NLP expert, a life skills coach and a formal mentor for people going through change (his web site provides some great tools and skills for change management and personal development Performance In Change )

 In his latest and new incarnation, he has moved from England to Phnom Penn to pursue his writing career and subsidizing this through earning by teaching life skills to kids at a local ex-pat school (why not!).

 

Jehangir has a soft and Socratic style.  Easy and calm to be around, though you know you are in the presence of true wisdom. I have definitely come to the Mountain.   

 



It's been a while! 

He is what I call a “weed friend”. This term deserves some explanation as it has nothing to do with size or stature.  My old business Partner (Matt)  wife (Cara) who first introduced me to the term “…you know, like a weed in the garden.  You can ignore it for years, abuse it, but it will always be there to come back to and pick things up where you left off.”

As well as being a good friend, Jehangir has been a formal mentor to me and has helped me through some turbulent times.  It’s a privilege to class him as a friend and it’s great to be back in his company staying at his place for a week before heading off to Europe.