Stephen Klimczuk

Stephen Klimczuk is a world traveller and corporate strategist who previously served as head of strategy for late billionaire Sir John Templeton's main private foundation. In addition to his external appointments at Oxford University, he advises philanthropies and companies in more than a dozen countries.

Earlier in his career, he was a director and board member of the prestigious World Economic Forum in Geneva, Switzerland, and a member of the Davos programme committee. He has also been a principal of the consulting firm A.T. Kearney. He started his career at Goldman Sachs and Bain & Company in New York and San Francisco in the 1980s, and was named a "World Young Leader" by the BMW Foundation in Munich.

The son of Polish political exiles who settled in North America, he received an MBA from Harvard Business School. In his off-hours, he has explored many of the obscure places covered in this book -- sometimes dragging his disapproving wife and three daughters along against their better judgement.