Me and my family lived for 2,5 years in New Jersey, USA, because of my job with Nikkei Business Publications America in New York. Surprisingly, despite the fact that you think to know it all, living in America at the beginning was still a slight culture shock. Fortunately, there were lots of nice, welcoming and very helpful people. But also a few red-tape and suspicious government officials who made our life sometimes sour. This resulted in a series of hilarious situations of modern ‘JanKezen’ in America.
I was initially asked to sell the b2b pubs by Nikkei BP on US East Coast, ranging from Toronto to Miami and was later asked to add to my portfolio the IT pubs as well and visit West Coast regularly to that purpose. All in all, I’ve seen lots of cities and met different clients and agencies and sold both off and online publication tools Nikkei BP had on offer.
When in 2008 the financial crisis hit New York, a few blocks away from our offices in fact, I became restricted in my travel plans and when I realized the crisis could be deeper and longer than ever before, I agreed to return to the Netherlands, and keep looking after the clients from a distance and help Nikkei BP find and appoint a local media rep. This was eventually done in late 2010.
My life in New York – Rodric Leerling
Rodric Leerling - Sales Power Provider 