Discovering that accounting was not for him, and having caught the travel bug, Derek packed his life into a 12kg backpack and moved to Manila, Philippines to do an internship with an Australian outsourcing company. He jumped into the deep end, despite taking the job before ever having visited Asia, launching head first and not looking back.

Starting in a new job, in a new industry, moving to a city where he knew no one, and a continent he had never visited before was just the beginning. The journey and adventure of expatriating and coming with nothing but his instincts and judgement to survive and thrive took him through a roller coaster of ups and downs, and an amazing period of self-learning and self-improvement. To say it was life changing would be an understatement.

After spending nearly half a decade across Asia, working for fast growing Aussie-led companies, helping Aussie small businesses and entrepreneur clients go global, think bigger and achieve more, he returned home to Melbourne.

Believing that entrepreneurship, business, new enterprise, capitalism, big ideas and innovation will be the building blocks and motor driving Australia forward he created the “FUTURE OF AUSTRALIA” project, to interview the Founders, CEOs and Entrepreneurs behind the fastest growing new businesses in Australia.

“FUTURE OF AUSTRALIA” is about interviewing, celebrating and sharing the knowledge, aspirations, struggles, goals and achievements of these people with a broader audience.

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