John Halsted

I am South African born and educated at Westville Boys High and Bath University, Somerset, UK. On my Father's side of the family my Grandfather was Australian and my Grandmother English. On my Mother's side they're all French. My wife is a Kiwi (New Zealander) as are my children. Although born and educated in South Africa I am now a New Zealand citizen living in the UK. I work out of London, Los Angeles and Hong Kong.

My career has been as shipping clerk, internal auditor, computer programmer, project manager, programme manager and director. Apat from the shipping, I have worked in IT, Finance and the Health Services, recently running performance improvement and financial recovery programmes.

I have come late to writing. I started by researching my family tree and found some ancestors were viking traders who had allegedly traded on the Silk Route. As such I researched this and soon found myself with a book on my hands. Its title is "Legend of the Last Vikings - Taklamakan" and can only be bought online (for now) at www.vikinglegend.com
In publishing my book I so successfully project managed the publication that I have been asked to run the publishing company. So my career has taken an unexpected and welcome turn.

While I continue to market my book, and man-o-man is it hard but challenging work, I countinue with my day job as CEO of the publishing company as well as doing the odd bit of business consultancy to keep the coffers topped-up.