A few days in Venice

It was to be my final gig with Siemens, to present at the Global Management Conference for the Building Automation business unit. Location was Venice and we decided it was an opportunity to good to refuse, so we packed the whole family and Sunnys sister Jinsoo and made the drive down to Venice for a few days.

The Hotel was the Hilton Stucky, a recently renovated industrial building on the canal facing Venice. It was one water bus stop away from the car park. Of course there are no cars in Venice so once the mode of transport is water bus and eater taxi and of course the gondola.

The boys were fascinated by the view of the canal and water traffic from the hotel window.

We had a chance to go to St Marco square and walk through the tiny alleys, past the shops to the Rialto bridge. Andrew loved the bridge and especially the feel of the old worn marble hand railing.

After the Venice trip we overnighted in Milano before heading up to the outlet shopping in Fox town, I bought clothes for Mingyu and the girls bought prada purse and feraggamo shoes.

Last Day at the office in Zug

The year went by at the speed of light, action packed the whole time. From getting married on 1 Feb 08 to having twins sons twelve days later, a few weeks after that moving the family to Switzerland with new job in a new country.

Yesterday was my last working day at Siemens, not only am I leaving Switzerland but I have hung up the boots with Siemens to be closer to families in Asia. The last 9-10 years with them have been an amazing run. When I joined in December 99 in Melbourne I was the only employee in my department, and my job was to start up an energy efficiency business which I did successfully before moving to Korea in 2003. The North Asian culture was fascinating and the work and living environment challenging. The long hours spent over nearly 3 years in taking the business from a basket case to global benchmark was a satisfying achievement. In Korea I was lucky enough to meet my lovely wife and we had some great time together exploring Seoul and korea. At the end of my contract I was interested to remain in Asia, despite being requested to move to the Swiss HQ.

I was lucky enough to land a job in Hong Kong and carry out a similar turnaround in the business in HK. Once again this was hard work but rewarding and satisfying and we received several regional and global awards from Siemens for the outstanding business performance and customer focus in HK. Living in HK was a buzz and through our friends we were able to enjoy the city, countryside, beaches and waterways.

So after two short years in HK the pull from HQ was getting stronger and the position on offer too good to refuse. It was the Global Head of Solutions (Projects) a business responsibility of a billion euro and over 8000 people. Again it was an interesting challenge, the work environment was so different from the megacities I spent the previous 5 years living and working in. Zug has 25 000 population and although small it has a phenomenal amount of offices and businesses. The transport and infrastructure around Zug is incredible, not surprising for one of the richest kantons in the country. Things happen at a different pace in the HQ, the discussion is always protracted and at an academic level, decisions strangely enough often made with insufficient information (ie from powerpoint) and hastily, depending on who shouts the loudest. We had a record profit year in my department in 2008 and we achieved a number of improvements on the HQ operations.

From a family point of view , Sunny had done an amazing job with the boys, most of it single handedly. I had also spent 6-7 weeks away from home in that time making it even tougher for her. Our lifestyle has adapted somewhat to the Swiss, for example we now eat lots of bread, cheese, cold meat and chocolate (at least no chocolate for me). We drink loads of bottled mineral water and an occasional glass of vino when the opportunity arises.

My final duty with Siemens will be to handover my job to an interim and long term successors in Venice on 19th March. We will use the chance to stay in venice for a couple of days and drive back to Zug after a stop and shop at the outlet shopping centre near Milano.

Next week I start my new job and attend their management meeting in Barcelona, after that I will have three weeks of introduction meetings in Denmark. During that time Sunnys sister Jinsu will come to Switzerland and help out with the kids. We then plan to leave Switzerland on the 10th April for our new home in Singapore.

Net stop for us is Singapore, almost half way between Korea and Australia. I will have a new role with a wind energy business that will include responsibility for Korea, North Asia, ASEAN, Australia, India and South Africa. They even have projects in Tasmania, so there will be more chances to get back to Tassie from time to time.

Fassnacht in Zug

Switzerland fires up for Fassnacht each year in February when the locals come out of hibernation, forget their rules on cleanliness and whoop it up in a weeklong celebration. Mums, dads, kids, teens all get involved in fancy dress, playing music and preparing for the big street parades.

Mingyu joined the parade in Cham with his schoolmates to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the school.