Knox

"Stokes suspected intuitively what Knox knew from experience: the best way to do business in Asia was to use local customs. ‘We were very conscious in Asia of always collecting the money [for the goods distributed],’ says Stokes. The only safe system was the Asian one of having people physically collect owed money on time, like a landlord knocking on doors for rent. The Singaporeans ignored their own hard-won wisdom and tried to introduce the latest Western methods, employing a Harvard graduate who put in an American payment system. It didn’t work. It was a lesson that when in Asia, do as the locals do, something Stokes would remember in China much later."

"‘Ken said when you come back [to Australia] give me a call, which I did,’ Knox recalls. ‘I consulted to Stokes one day a week, which developed into seven days a week.’ Seven days a week would become fifteen years — although Knox prides himself on the fact that he was never on the payroll. He was his own man, retained as a consultant."