About
A Life Observing How Societies Work
I am Tim, although I write here under the pseudonym The Bard of Patagonia.
I first came to Argentina in the late twentieth century intending to stay for a couple of years. Three decades later, I am still here — advising executives and investors across Latin America and Europe, teaching advanced English to anyone patient enough to put up with me, and occasionally appearing on stage as an actor or with a guitar in hand.
Work and curiosity have taken me to more than eighty countries, mainly across Europe, Africa, and Latin America, with a spattering of Asia thrown in for good measure. In some places I understood what was going on. In others I thought I did until events proved otherwise. Between negotiations, airport lounges, late-night conversations and the more theatrical corners of corporate life, I have come to suspect that most professional disciplines are, at heart, variations on the same question: how do people with different assumptions learn to communicate with and subsequently trust one another long enough to get something done?
My work has involved helping individuals and organisations navigate unfamiliar regulatory environments, institutional cultures and ways of doing business that are not always captured in formalities. Much of what matters in those situations is implicit rather than explicit — the use of language, tone of voice, social codes, humour, hierarchy, the choreography of meetings and meals — the subtleties that determine whether a relationship is going to prosper or not.
I now live in Buenos Aires with my children, drink more Malbec than is strictly advisable, and continue to believe that books, food, humour, music, theatre and football are often better guides to a society than its official statistics.
The Bard of Patagonia is where I try to make sense of what I’ve seen and share with those who care to read.
I invite you to explore my world.