nick65
nick65
| Forum role | Member since | Last activity | Topics created | Replies created |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Member | Oct 29, 2013 (12 years) |
7 years | 1 | 1 |
- Forum role
- Member
- Member since
Oct 29, 2013 (12 years)
- Last activity
- 7 years
- Topics created
- 1
- Replies created
- 1
Bio
I’m born on the mean streets of Glasgow, where ambition is rare, money is rarer, and excuses are for people with the luxury of failure. I’m not interested in a mediocre life. I leave school at 15 and throw myself into an engineering apprenticeship. Five years later I qualify as a Marine Engineer, and the moment I do, I’m ready to get out and see the world.
I begin my career as an engineering officer in South Africa, then spend seven years in the Merchant Navy, learning the kind of discipline and resilience you don’t get from textbooks — only from storms, steel, and survival.
But I’m never meant to stay in one lane.
I move into international business, and my first role is nothing short of surreal: I become Chief Engineer at the largest chocolate factory in Brazil — a Willy Wonka-style empire where sugar, power, and ambition run wild. Within seven months I become Managing Director. Within four years, I increase turnover from $10 million a year to $60 million, proving that the boy from Glasgow isn’t just good with engines — I’m dangerous with strategy.
America comes next.
After three years in the US, I return to the UK to be with my young family. I take on senior leadership roles, including Director of UB Foods in London, before moving to Gerber Foods alongside my friend Angus Grant. Together, we transform the business from a £50 million operation into a £200 million powerhouse.
But for me, success is never enough unless it comes with risk.
In 1990, I start my own company, Morrison & Clark International, and enter the Russian market in January — at the dawn of an era where fortunes are made overnight and people disappear just as quickly. I spend more than 20 years building my business in Russia, where life is as colourful as it is dangerous. Encounters with the KGB and the Russian Mafia become part of everyday life, and trips to Moscow Airport often require a police escort — not for prestige, but for survival.
It’s in Russia, in the middle of that chaos and intensity, that I begin to build my second life: writing.
I draw on decades of lived experience across the globe — boardrooms, backrooms, airports, deals, danger, and the characters you couldn’t invent if you tried. After a glittering corporate career, I step away from business in 2010 to pursue my creative dream and focus on writing full time.
Business eventually pulls me back into corporate life, but I still manage to complete eight Jack Malaney spy thrillers, two children’s books, and an autobiography (strictly for the family — some stories are better kept behind closed doors).
Now I’m finally telling the full story.
Not for sympathy.
Not for approval.
But because I’ve earned the right to say:
I lived it. I survived it. And I’ve got nae regrets.
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