Where to begin?

Hugh was born in Northern Ireland , then moved to Dublin when he was 4 years old. At age 9, his family moved to Chicago for his father’s banking career. At almost 13, he moved back to Dublin and finished school at age 17. At this time, he had attended 8 schools and lived in 8 different homes so he knows about change.

He started working in retail management, then moved to banking and then emigrated to New York at age 24. After a brief period working on Wall Street, he started bartending and loved to make money from tips and chat to customers. He returned back to Ireland and started working in sales. At 27, he became Commercial Attache for the Israeli Embassy and was responsible for developing trade between Ireland and Israel. He was never a desk guy so set up his own business selling software and phone systems and , at 29 got itchy feet again. He emigrated to Osaka to manage a friend’s Irish pub at age 29 and to Australia at age 30.

In 2000, he was back in Ireland and started to study marketing, advertising and public relations and worked as a freelance trainer and coach. In 2001, he established Be Your Best Limited and appeared regularly on radio and television with his mantra of supporting others in their development and Kaizen – continuous and never ending improvement. 

He supported many clients with career transition and new business planning and launching and assisting the unemployed to make the change to employment. 

In 2005, he started to travel again to a Buddhist monastery in Thailand, then to Cambodia and then to Vietnam and he met Olga there.

He continued his travels to Australia and New Zealand but decided to return home in mid 
2006. 

He received an email from Olga inviting him to come to Russia and emigrated for love in late 
2007.

He has had a teaching business since then and has combined this with editorial, copywriting, acting, charity work, dubbing and translation projects.

He has participated in language camps in Crimea, Saint Petersburg, Moscow and Moscow region.

He lives outside Moscow with Olga and their daughter, Alexandra – 7 years old –  who speaks super English but doesn’t really like papa’s English lessons.