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Reflections at the halfway mark

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Yesterday we hit the halfway mark in our trip. For those not aware of our plans or planning, we will be travelling for six months. It is a wonderful experience, but not without its challenges for such a long period.  We had planned the first nine weeks and after that were going to “work it out on the road”. Our first big picture plan had to be adjusted when we learned we were not allowed to take our car into the Balkans. After a day or two trying to find ways around it, we modified our plans. We usually plan about a month ahead, but slowly. This allows us to change our minds on where we should stay, based on the recommendations of friendly waiters….true story!

We spent last evening reflecting on the things we have learned on our trip so far…..

  • Having time provides us with a great opportunity to explore places that are off the usual beaten track and perhaps less well-known. As I write this, we are almost at the end of eight days in the northwest pocket of Greece, high in the mountains. This is an area packed with ancient stone villages, beautiful lakes, steep mountains and gorges. Some of the scenery looks like we could be in any of the mountain villages of Europe, although constant presence of Greek food does remind us where we are. It is not the easiest place to travel to but it has been a wonderful place to visit – with interesting history, beautiful scenery and warm hospitality. This is a different way to travel compared to squeezing a trip into a couple of weeks and we feel very privileged to be able to do it this way.
  • Moving every few days is exhausting. We packed the first couple of months with continuous moving from place to place. Two or three nights in an Airbnb is too short on a consistent basis. We arrive in the afternoon and spend the first afternoon working out our new environment, the second day looking around and then we are off again. We have since slowed down the pace, staying for five nights at Airbnbs, and if we stay somewhere for a shorter period, we have booked hotels. We have also repacked, so we don’t have to access all our bags when we stay in hotels (it’s pretty difficult to travel superlight for a six-month period).
  • The first day at a new Airbnb or village is the hardest. Not without me having had a couple of “moments”, we now know that when we first arrive it is not always as we expected it to be. It might be that we didn’t think about the location well enough, that some things don’t work the way we expect, or just that we may be tired from the travelling to get there. It is usually better by the second day, and we have learned to adapt and find ways to make everywhere work for us.
  • On that note, interpreting Airbnb descriptions (or the absence of a description) is an acquired skill. We look for “fully equipped kitchen” in the comments, air-conditioning throughout, how far it is from where you want to be (or not too close to where you don’t want to be). We check the photos to see what the kitchen is like, is there a couch and, in Italy, is it not right next to the kitchen table. Even then, one can’t always be sure that the three-bedroom, two-bathroom place doesn’t mean that one of the bathrooms is out the back and one must go outside to access it!
Greek coffee & orange cake
Greek frappe and deed cappuccino
Italian espresso, macchiato & sfogliatella (R)
  • Coffee: A “piccolo latte” in Sardinia is a “noisette”. Italian espressos are very short and cheap, a double espresso costs double and a cappuccino at least three times the cost of an espresso. Greek coffee needs a little sugar, and freddo cappuccinos are fabulous, but need stirring before drinking. Coffees in Greece always come with a complimentary biscuit or piece of cake. In both Italy and Greece, coffee comes with a glass of water – perhaps to balance the effect?
  • There is nothing quite like eating fresh fruit, picked off the tree – cherries, figs, kumquats, plums, apricots, oranges, mulberries and red currants have all been sampled. Fresh potatoes, cooked straight after being pulled out of the ground bring a whole new respect for the starchy tuber. And the other local vegetables such as tomatoes, peppers (pointy capsicum), eggplant, onions and garlic sold by the local truck that pulls up on the side of the road, taste magnificent. These fresh fruit and vegetables make dreaming up recipes an easy delight.
  • The European siesta now makes perfect sense. It may have been colder for longer than we expected but summer then started with a bang! By about 2pm it is far too hot to be outdoors. We head inside for a late lunch and then stay inside in air-conditioning until about 7pm when it starts to cool slightly. It is bright until close to 9pm when we realise it might be time to think about dinner. I still haven’t learned to sleep well on a full stomach when we finish dinner after 10.30pm.
  • Food/meals we have discovered we love – 
    • Baked feta
    • Galaktoboureko (Greek custard pie)
    • Sfogliatelle (a pocket of filo pastry best filled with ricotta) – but only on the day they are made
    • Tropean onions – long sweet red onions, amazing cooked with spaghetti or in onion tart, but lovely raw as well
    • Greek Orange cake
    • There is nothing that extra virgin olive oil doesn’t make better
    • Bruschetta with fresh plum tomatoes, basil and EVOO
    • Negroamaro – the red wine grape of Puglia
    • Limoncello Spritz (for Dina anyway)
  • Navigating Italian petrol stations requires patience and a preparedness to accept that what worked at the last place is not likely to work at this place. Having realised that self-serve prices are significantly lower than the serviced pumps, one must make sure to drive next to the correct pump. Then one must understand that if you can get the machine to accept your credit or debit card (not always the case for no apparent reason), it will charge the card €105 no matter how much the petrol costs! I had to have it explained by the lady at the counter (in Italian) that tomorrow I would be charged the amount the petrol costs and then credited the €105. Phew! At the machine, one version asks you to select the pump first and then give your card, another wants the card first and then select the pump. No surprises that not all the machines have an English translation, so I almost paid for someone else’s petrol at one point. Luckily, the kind man realised I was a flailing tourist and cancelled the transaction for me. In retrospect, it made the issue of trying to pay for petrol in Israel with a non-Israeli card not quite as traumatic. Thankfully in Greece we are back to being served at the bowser for the same price and paying the cashier.
  • It is wonderful to not have to set the alarm for 5am, to not have to jump out of bed when one does eventually wake up and quite a shock to the system to have to set the alarm occasionally for an early hike.
  • Perhaps partially because of the pace mentioned in my first point, it took ten weeks for Kevin to stand in the clear water at the beach in Corfu beneath cloudless bright blue skies, turn to me with a smile and say, “it beats working”.  He hasn’t changed his mind yet. 😊

Life in Liapades

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Last year, when talking about this trip, I would say to people: “Our ideal village to stay is one that has two cafes and a bike shop”. And here we are, on the western coast of the island of Corfu, staying in the village of Liapades (pop. 916), which has two cafes and a bike shop. Except that the bike shop rents motorbikes, not bicycles as we had envisaged!

Liapades also has three churches, three minimarkets, three bars, two bakeries, two boat hire companies and a much larger number of family run restaurants or tavernas. It is positioned at the end of a gorgeous bay, with a stone covered beach surrounded by cliffs, with several little beaches, one more beautiful than the next in the coves around the bay and beyond. The nearest beaches are arrived at by walking down a steep path to the water level, allowing for views of the most iridescent turquoise and blue water on the way. Once at the beach, the water is crystal clear and while it becomes very deep very quickly, it appears much shallower as one can see all the way to the sandy bottom just a few metres offshore.

Liapades from above
Liapades Beach
View on the way to the beach

This is a place where the Mediterranean lifestyle and demeanour surrounds you. The first afternoon when we went to the bakery at the end of the lane which leads to our place, the baker had sold out of bread. We made a point of going back the next day in the morning, only to find that he only accepted cash and we didn’t have the €4 our loaf of bread and pastry cost. “Don’t worry”, the baker says. “You can pay tomorrow.” And so we did.

The hosts of our Airbnb, George and Katerina, live in the upstairs of the house we are staying in. They were both there to meet us, having happily agreed to allow us to arrive at 10am as we had caught the overnight ferry from Puglia in Italy. They both work in hospitality, clearly the main industry and employer in the region – she during the day and he does the 4pm to midnight shift. The house is surrounded by fruit trees, and they couldn’t have been more welcoming and generous in providing us with initial provisions and insisting we help ourselves to the fruit at any time. Each day we find fresh produce on our doorstep: lettuce one day, the next day fresh eggs and apricots, then plums and more apricots. We have also enjoyed kumquats, mulberries, figs, cherries and tiny plums from the tree.  George’s parents tend the garden and vegetable patch next door and each day his father greets us with a warm smile and a greeting of “Kalimera” (good morning). Having offered us fresh potatoes three days in a row, he was delighted that we accepted the offer today, foisting on us three times as much as I would have selected for myself. 

I cannot express the delight of the opportunity to prepare food with these fresh ingredients. The potatoes went into a warm potato salad with rocket, parsley, red peppers (the tastiest I have ever eaten) and a pesto mayonnaise dressing. The fresh eggs and apricots became the key ingredients of a twist on a Greek galaktoboureko or custard pie, with orange syrup instead of lemon. The plums, cherries, apricots and more make their way into fruit bowls for breakfast, with real Greek yoghurt on top!

Having taken a lot longer to get warm than we expected (and apparently than everyone in Europe expected), summer has now arrived in full swing. The days here warm up very quickly. I have taken to walking 1.3kms down to the beach, swimming for almost 2kms in the sea and then walking back with Kevin, who in the meantime has run up and through and around the village down to meet me at the beach as I finish my swim. By the time we have enjoyed a leisurely breakfast it is late morning. If we head down to one of the beaches, we can’t stay out for too long. For probably the first time in our lives, we appreciate the necessity of the beach umbrella our hosts insisted us taking to the beach. We might not finish our late lunch until 3pm and by 7pm we are asking each other where the day has gone – even though it is still bright outside. 

So we find ourselves walking out for dinner after 8.30pm, with the sky slowly changing from a pale blue to yellow, orange, pink and then purple before the light eventually disappears at about 9.45pm. On our first night we ventured into the bigger and more touristy village next to us for dinner by the sea, but our more relaxed and authentic meals have been at two of the tavernas in Liapades. One of them faces onto the “main” square up in the old village, made up of the taverna, two bars where many of the old men of the town congregate outside to sit and chat, and a church. 

Evening skies
Liapades village square
An abundance of fresh fruit

The taverna was a family affair. The sons were waiting tables with warm generous smiles, the father was managing the service and mother and daughter were doing the cooking. The food was delicious, the service warm and the turnover of tables substantial as regulars and tourists would wait patiently in the square for a table to become free. Watching life in the village square occur at the same time was certainly part of the fun. 

The other taverna sampled so far is the “Fish Taverna” of the village, once again a family affair. This time the courtyard where we sat was covered in vines and the outlook was through the valley down to the beach, with gorgeous vermillion skies as a backdrop. Here the simple food far exceeded our expectations. Baked feta with tomato and oregano, tzatziki thick with cucumber pieces and rich yoghurt, sea bass grilled to perfection and sardines crisp and juicy at the same time – both accompanied by perfectly boiled potatoes (which probably came from the garden next door) and a very drinkable local rosé wine. We thought we had no space to order dessert, but we were able to make space for the delicious complimentary yoghurt mixed with honey and orange. 

Tomorrow the sun will come up again and beam down its hot and strong rays. We are planning to take a boat tour around this area of coastline and see all the hidden spectacular beaches and then have the boat drop us at one of them for a couple of hours. We are finally leaning into the slower, holiday mode – but how we are managing that process is for another time….

15 June 2025

The long and winding road

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coffees3Unsurprisingly perhaps, the process of having coffees leading to networking and directorships is not a linear one. This is perhaps even more so in my case, with a large “Asian pivot” in place. So I regard the 78 Asian based coffees I have had so far this year as a process of “understanding my new environment”, or as one person put it to me, “taking the pulse” of the market. And the pulse check tells me it’s going to be a long road.

I could continue to have many coffees and meet more people, as introductions are not difficult to procure. But the reality is, the process here, as in Australia, is also a slow one and I have the challenging attributes of being “non-Asian”, female and new to Singapore to make that even more testing. So the pulse check leads me to believe that while I should continue to have coffees and build my network, I need to build a local profile. And the best way to do that is to use the learnings that I have developed from my executive and non-executive roles to date and apply them in a positive way.

The winding road comes because it may not appear an obvious way to get to a directorship, but already the mentoring, strategy consulting and start-up advice I have provided have opened new doors, introduced me to local business people and entrepreneurs and improved my understanding of how things get done. My intention is to spend more time seeking roles in these areas rather than directly in pursuit of non-executive directorships. I am engaged, helping others and making a contribution – all of which is intensely satisfying. The ongoing opportunities to meet new people are welcomed.

I remain focused on a non-executive director portfolio as the end goal, but think this long and winding road may indeed be a way to get there.

 

Coffee count: 469

2013 Review

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christmas coffeeAs the year draws to a close, it’s been an eventful one for this blogger.

This time last year I was one of seemingly thousands of women and men looking for a non-executive directorship, trying to distinguish myself amongst many talented and experienced people.

I started this blog with a view to differentiating myself (as I exhort my consulting clients to do) and at the same time wanting to share the learnings I have gained during my many coffee meetings. I also hoped to be able to help other aspirants avoid at least some of the disappointments and frustrations I have experienced as they travel on their own journeys.  I will continue to aim to do this and at the same time share my views of the various aspects of the “Diversity Issue” that arise from time to time.

The multiplier effect of social media resulted in my first non-executive director role and this has been a great learning experience.  I’ve been thrown in the deep end in terms of the expectation to contribute to the board and have had to put governance theories into practice.  I have also closely observed and experienced the boundaries between executive and non-executive roles.

Throughout the year, I maintained the pursuit of my 1000 coffees with people from whom I can learn something or who can introduce me to others. As a result of this and the support of a mentor and champion, I have just secured a NED role on the Foundation of a major NSW public institution.  I am excited to be able to work with such a talented and passionate group of people, both within the Foundation and on its board.  While they want the skills I can bring, the match-making process still came through networking and being recommended by others.

In the very same week I was contacted in relation to another potential NED role, this time in a privately owned, private equity invested company.  While it’s not yet certain where this will go, it is an exciting way for the year to finish.

2013 has been a year where the “Diversity Issue” has had more headlines than ever before.  There has been much more discussion and action about how to make change, as opposed to just the need for change.  More women have been appointed to boards than in previous years and more women have moved up the executive ranks in more companies and organisations than ever before.  I believe there is a greater awareness in Australia of the benefits of having women help run and direct businesses, whether they be public, private, government or non-profit. There is an acknowledgement of the need to do things differently than in the past, to help make that happen.  It won’t occur overnight and there are still many hurdles and stumbling blocks to manage, but change is taking place and recognition should be accorded to those who have driven this change.

My thanks to the people who follow this blog and who have recommended it to others. Thanks also to those who have encouraged me to write it and to continue to develop it (you know who you are).  Wishing you all “Season’s Greetings” and hoping you enjoy some downtime over the Australian summer.  1000 coffees will continue in 2014.

Coffee count: 217

Introduction

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long blackI took a career break in the second half of 2011, having spent 25 years working, much of that on a full-time basis.  While it was confounding to me that with “nothing to do” I was busy all day, it was a nice change to be able to sit and have a coffee, read the papers and solve the problems of the world economy at my kitchen table.

With the benefit of some time and space to reflect, I realised that I didn’t necessarily want to be in the “cut and thrust” of an executive role any more. My preference was to consider a variety of business issues and help to solve problems. A portfolio of non-executive directorships and consulting work seemed to be the solution.  After all, an experienced female NED had said to be me five years before that if I still wanted to roll up my sleeves and fix things, then I wasn’t ready for NED roles.  Having spent the interim five years with not only my sleeves rolled up but my nose to the grindstone, I was ready to operate at the next level.

Seems that the Australian Institute of Company Directors’ (AICD) Company Directors Course was a necessity, and worthwhile.  Then started the serious process of breaking into the NED space.  It’s a process of writing and rewriting one’s CV and developing an appropriate elevator pitch. It’s also a process of meeting lots of people and continuing to expand one’s circle of contacts.

For the record, as I start this blog, I’m up to 126 coffees; coffee meetings that is. Truth is I’ve drunk many more coffees than that in the past year!  Seems like a long way to go. On the other hand, if you divide it by 42 weeks (I’ll explain why the 10 week absence in another entry), it comes to an average of three coffees a week.  For each coffee meeting, there are emails seeking introductions to the person, emails and/or phone calls to arrange it, research about the person and so on.  That alone is a part-time job.  But I have resolved to up the pace this year, even if it means I might have to have to add green tea to my choice of beverage.