Two Years in Asia: Building Across Borders

It started with one move.

Campus & Amity University, India

Two years ago I took on international operations for a global tourism business, based in India, with an MBA in Travel & Tourism running alongside it. What followed was a run across Asia and Eastern Europe, including a stretch based in Istanbul, building partnerships market after market. That chapter has just closed, and I'm now looking at new global opportunities.

Partnerships, one market at a time.

Singapore · Malaysia · Qatar

Business development and partnership work took me through Singapore, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Turkey, the Balkans, Saudi Arabia, Nepal and Qatar. Along the way I coordinated a global summit with representatives from 60+ international offices, and wrote the operational standards, training handbooks and onboarding programs teams still use today.

Different rooms, same playbook.

Moscow, Russia · India

From a Moscow evening to a Turkish community event held in the middle of India, the work kept finding new rooms to walk into, and the same instinct for building relationships kept working, room after room.

Where the 105 partnerships came from.

Goa, India · Singapore · Istanbul, Türkiye

Every number on the cover has a room attached to it: a partner meeting in Goa, a walk along the Bosphorus, a handshake in a hotel lobby. B2B trust gets built face to face, deal by deal, fair by fair.

Trust moves faster than paperwork.

Baku, Azerbaijan · Mostar, Bosnia · Kathmandu, Nepal

Two years, thirteen countries, from Baku to Mostar to the mountains of Nepal, with market visits across Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Russia and beyond. Every market plays by different rules.

The org chart tells you who to email. It doesn't tell you who has to vouch for you first.

You don't learn a market from a slide deck.

Indonesia · Sri Lanka

An afternoon with a Sri Lankan operator or a walk through an Indonesian estate taught me more about how tourism businesses actually run, from margins to seasonality to local politics, than any report ever could.

What two years on the ground builds.

Istanbul, Türkiye

Cross-cultural negotiation and partnership-building. Localized go-to-market execution across languages and markets. Operational scale-up, from process design to training to execution. And real comfort operating without a playbook, in unfamiliar markets, fast.

The classroom ran in parallel.

Amity University, India

Alongside the fieldwork, an MBA in Travel & Tourism at Amity University, India. Every framework from class got tested days later in a live negotiation or a partner meeting, taught by professors and mentors I'm still grateful to.

What two years actually moved.

Dagestan, Russia

Personally hosted and managed operations for 1,600+ international guests. Supported a global network whose annual traveler volume grew into six figures over that time. Built and managed B2B relationships with international travel agents, DMCs and corporate clients. One laptop, one time zone, one market at a time.

Building what's next.

Business growth, partnerships and operations management. The next chapter starts here.