I would like to thank everyone who appears in Dragon Suit, whether under their real name or, according to their wishes, an approximate pseudonym. I deeply appreciate the time, thought, and care they dedicated to my project.
I am grateful to the friends who painstakingly peer-reviewed my book: Weirong Li, Kyle Hegarty, Peter Hill, and Michael Wenderoth. Going beyond the already ambitious task of reviewing an entire manuscript under time pressure, they contributed original ideas that I did my best to include in the final version.
I am indebted to educators at ELTE Budapest, the Central European University and the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna for starting me on a global journey, and mentors who helped me develop into a leadership consultant, speaker, and writer: Prof. Albrecht Schnabel, Rob Wagenaar, the late Francois Rouen, Hans Werner Hagemann, Katalin Ferber, and Shelley Weiner.
Any merit of Dragon Suit includes the dedication of colleagues and business partners at my Shanghai-based consultancy and our affiliated firms, including Wang Yuhai, Gabor Nagy, Tracy Zang, Rik Vodeb, Magnus Omstedt, Christine Xue, Bethany Jeanfreau, Jack Guo, Zoltán Aszalós, Csaba Toth, Sinto Llobera, Fabrizio Ullivi, Jamie Chang, Richard Kang, and many others.
I gained invaluable knowledge, experience and wisdom from clients who became friends over time, including executives featured in this book, but also Luo Fei, Akyazici Oemer, Balázs Vizi, David Lee, Jürgen Ries, Gohar Siddiqui, Szilárd Bolla, Massimo Meloni, Gábor Szórád, and others. I am also grateful to the thousands of managers who shared their ideas at my workshops, coaching sessions, keynote speeches, and panel discussions.
Much of what I know about intercultural existence comes from amazing friends like Áron Zsigmond, Philippe Tremblay, Naobumi Obara, Barbara Ürögdi, Rich DeForno, Nicky Almasy, Rosanna Terminio, Gustavo Araujo, Claude and Fiona, Niels and Lindsey, and others.
Dragon Suit would have been impossible without my agent Nigel Wyatt, and the dedicated team of Business Expert Press.
The whole undertaking would be meaningless without an amazing family that taught me curiosity and respect toward other people’s thoughts, feelings, living memory, and written legacy: Mom and Dad, my sister Nikoletta, and my late Aunt Klára.