Ian's early career was in media before he joined Kent Training and Enterprise Council as Director of Research & Development. He became a Technical Expert for the European Commission in Vocational Educational and Training in 2000 and worked extensively in Poland, Croatia, Portugal and the Euroregion of Kent, Northern France and Belgium. In the same year Ian became Managing Director of The Learning and Business Observatory (LBO Ltd) a project management consultancy specialising in large scale EU funding and networks. Ian began working with schools in 2004 through The Enterprise Laboratory, supplying a new enterprise learning curriculum at Key Stage 4, and with universities on campus expansion projects. Ian is a knowledge transfer Associate of Bristol Business School and a Fellow of the RSA. Ian has been based in Doha, Qatar since early 2010 where he is Appleyards' representative for a number of development projects in the Gulf region.