Gerry’s long career in international trade, market development, and government-facing work shapes his approach to technology, policy, institutions, and everyday decision-making. After nearly six decades spent evaluating markets, infrastructure, incentives, and political systems, he has developed a reputation for cutting through noise, fashion, and official mythology with clear, real-world analysis grounded in lived experience rather than slogans.
His working life mirrors the transformation of British industry and international trade since the late 1960s. He entered exporting at a time when communication relied on telex, telegrams, and face-to-face contact, and when markets were developed through persistence, pragmatism, and personal relationships rather than dashboards and video calls.
His career took him across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australasia, the Caribbean, North America, and, on one remarkable occasion, North Korea. A formative period with Hepworth Plastics saw him responsible for developing overseas markets for plastic plumbing systems, working closely with distributors, engineers, contractors, and government bodies. This included licensing agreements, technology transfer, and the establishment of local manufacturing operations in South Korea, Malaysia, and New Zealand.
South Korea became a defining chapter in both his professional and personal life. He lived and worked there for several years, gaining an insider’s understanding of business culture, regulation, industrialisation, and the long importance of trust in East Asian commerce. It was also where he met his second wife, whose linguistic and cultural insight later became central to their joint professional work.
In October 1993, Gerry was seconded to the Department of Trade and Industry as Export Promoter for Korea at Grade 7 Civil Service level, in an appointment approved by a minister and formally recorded by the Department. The surviving DTI records show that the secondment began on 29 October 1993, was intended to run for two years, and placed him inside the Department full-time, apart from a limited continuing commitment to Barnsley Chamber of Commerce.
That rank placed him at senior policy and programme-management level: leading Korea-related trade promotion work, advising British firms on market access and strategy, working closely with embassy commercial staff, preparing and supporting ministerial activity, and operating in direct contact with ministers’ offices, senior civil servants, and external stakeholders. His role was not clerical or observational; it involved judgement, representation, and responsibility inside government at a significant level. During this period he worked closely with Richard Needham, then Minister for Trade, and in October 1994 accompanied Michael Heseltine, President of the Board of Trade, on the UK trade mission to Korea.
It was during this period—working at the interface between business, diplomacy, and government—that he developed a deep and lasting interest in politics and in how Parliament and government actually function in practice, as distinct from how they are often described. Seeing the machinery from the inside gave him first-hand insight into how policy is formed, negotiated, and implemented, and how institutions preserve continuity even while appearing to reform.
He later founded Korea Connections, a specialist consultancy supporting British companies entering the Korean market.
A lifelong pragmatist and willing technophile, Gerry was using dial-up CompuServe email in the early days of digital communication and has consistently embraced new technology while remaining sceptical of unexamined claims. Although never formally an engineer, he grew up surrounded by motor engineering and remains closely connected to the trade through family involvement in a local workshop and MOT station.
Now retired from professional practice, he writes independently, drawing on first-hand experience of trade, culture, power, institutional dynamics, and the realities that sit behind official narratives.
Background at a glance
Practical insight into how institutions, incentives, and government systems operate in reality
Nearly six decades in international trade and export development
Extensive overseas work across Asia, Europe, the Middle East, the Caribbean, Australasia, and North America
Long-term professional and personal involvement in South Korea
Experience in licensed manufacturing, technology transfer, and market entry
Former DTI Export Promoter for Korea, seconded at Grade 7 Civil Service level from 1993 to 1995
Ministerial-level appointment approval recorded in DTI files
First-hand experience of trade policy, ministerial briefings, and embassy–Civil Service coordination