I quit

We had our Rotary lunch 20 July 2021 in Kempinski, this time not anymore as Sergeant-at-Arms as I quit for “obvious personal reasons”. Well I can finally enjoy the food, the company and listen to the speaker!

Speaker was Sean McLeod, consular officer in US Embassy in Beijing. Topic: “ “How I Became a Foreign Service Officer”.
He told his story on how he become a diplomat after a diverse career, with posts in Indonesia, among among others. He was deeply involved with the evacuation flights from Wuhan last year.

Meeting Highlight as in the Newsletter

Sean McLeod is a consular officer from the US Embassy in Beijing. In this captivating talk, Sean described the trajectory of his career and highlighted the reasons why he decided to quit the private sector to serve his country. It all started with medicine. Sean first studied to become a doctor, but finding it not what he wanted, he made a big jump to computer programing and moved to Japan to live overseas for the first time. Finding it not fulfilling still, he went on to study for an MBA and later became a management consultant for IBM for 15 years. While as many people would have just settled down at what they had at this stage in life, Sean was not satisfied. Deciding to join the foreign service, he then took the foreign service examination and after successfully passing it, took the foreign service training on teamwork and how to achieve consensus on issues while representing US interests abroad. Sean’s current tour is in the consular section at the US Embassy in Beijing.