Roger Collis is probably best known for his weekly column, ‘The Frequent Traveler,’ every Friday for 23 years (1985-2008), in the International Herald Tribune; and as a contributing travel columnist for the New York Times. ’ He wrote a bi- monthly column for CNN ‘Traveller’ magazine for 20 years, and contributes to publications on both sides of the Atlantic.
Roger was educated at Liverpool University, where he was president of the Dramatic Society; he is a member of the International Alumni Association of IMD Business School in Lausanne. He served as a lieutenant commanding a transport platoon in the RASC during his two-year National Service and his subsequent service in the Army Emergency Reserve.
He moved to Switzerland in 1961 to run a ‘creative boutique’ in Lausanne for the largest British international advertising agency at the time, Colman Prentis & Varley; then became head of European marketing for Miles Laboratories, an emerging U.S. multinational, before being headhunted to become a group vice president at Cederroth International, a family-held Swedish health care company headquartered in Geneva. His last corporate job was marketing and sales director for the British subsidiary of the international pharmaceuticals giant Merck Inc. of Rahway, New Jersey. In 1980, he made a long anticipated career change, moving to Antibes in the South of France, where he spent more than 20 years reinventing himself as a writer and newspaper/magazine journalist, contributing to local radio and to the BBC World Service, before moving back to England in 2001.
The second edition of Roger’s bestselling book, The Survivor’s Guide to Business Travel, was described by the London Times as ‘the best source of independent travel advice on the market.’ He is also the author of If My Boss Calls, Make Sure you Get His Name, a collection of columns satirizing the corporate life. He won a special award in the Carlson Wagonlit 2004 press awards for the Business Travel industry.
Roger has recently published an e-book, Food and the Single Man – recipes for survival and seduction. His new book, The Accidental Manager, is a selective collection of his satirically serious management and travel columns published over the years.
He is a versatile voice artist and narrator: his latest venture is a 62-minute CD of 29 readings from the King James Bible, with interludes on the Celtic Harp.
The Survivor’s Guide to Business Travel
‘The best source of independent travel advice on the market.’ – The Times
‘Everything a frequent traveler needs.’ – First Class (IAPA)
‘You’ll be entertained and educated by this informed guide.’ The Good Book Guide
‘The ultimate point of reference for the business traveler.’ – City to Cities
‘This book delivers exactly what it promises.’ – Traveller
‘Witty and pithy comment… very positive advice.’ – Dial Magazine
‘The perfect bible for anyone who finds company trips a headache’ – The London Evening Standard
‘A most entertaining and informative book… will be welcomed by both frequent and occasional travelers.’ – Chartered Secretary. Kogan Page 2000 2002
If my boss calls, make sure you get his name
Autolycus Press 1984
‘A wittily subversive collection of articles on the business world by a former corporate in-fighter now safely residing in the South of France. You’re bound to recognize acquaintances in his benevolent de-bunking of managerial pretension. Required reading.’ – The Good Book Guide
‘I know a number of people who read Chief Executive back to front because they find special pleasure in Roger Collis’s vignettes of life in a large multinational.
Collis, one-time head of Miles Laboratories’ European operation, is a rare bird whichever way you look at him. A management writer who actually knows what it’s like to manage something, or a manager who actually knows how to write.
You don’t have to be a big-company executive to feel the authenticity of the bitter-sweet recollections of a man currently enjoying a quite different lifestyle on the Cote d’Azur.
His followers will be interested to learn that Autolycus Press has published a selection of his pieces in a slim volume entitled “If my boss calls… make sure you get his name.”
Complete with the Sax cartoons originally commissioned by Chief Executive, it has a typical Collis dedication: “For my former colleagues still in harness… my friends and my enemies.”
The price, £4.95, is low enough to make the Welshman’s lip curl. It would be a useful Christmas gift for the customer you don’t wish to spend too much on – or the colleagues who might be discomforted to find a little of themselves in Collis’s anti-heroes.’ – Chief Executive 1984
‘Mid-Atlantic management executive of Doberman & Pinscher Advertising skates elegantly from one disaster to another – he is the sort of chap who gets info of his impending promotion from the company drivers’ gossip, observes the stealthy exodus of top management at 4.55 on Friday afternoons just as the ‘phone rings from Madrid and discovers holes in his socks at the Japanese shoe shedding ceremony. Succinct, witty and very funny, Collis’ writing have appeared in The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, BBC World Service et cetera. Illustrations by Sax. – The Western Morning News.
‘It is good to read a humorous book which actually makes you laugh. - Bookwatch
Food and the Single Man
Recipes for Survival and Seduction Second edition
An antidote to conventional cook books
‘Fast food does not need to be junk food: food can be junk at any speed.’
Here is the second edition of a small book of cheering advice for any man (or woman, or working couple), who has ever stared gloomily into the fridge late at night.
Served up with wit, panache and the occasional weird spice combination, this engaging book, part memoir and part cookery book, distils a life-time’s experience into 110 pages. Here are tasty soups, stews, puddings and many inventive ways with leftovers. There is even a chapter on creative ‘grazing.’
A life spent ‘on the road’ as a corporate executive and journalist, has given Roger a wealth of culinary experience, good and bad. In this sharp, timely little book, Roger urges his readers to ‘trust the taste buds’ in their heads.
He shows how, with a little intuition and fresh ingredients to hand, anyone can create satisfying, healthy and nourishing nosh simply and quickly while avoiding the temptation of processed food and microwave bung-ins.
‘Like politics, and writing a newspaper column, cooking is the art of the possible. This means making do with whatever you have available in the fridge or store cupboard. (It doesn’t have to be baked beans on toast – although this is a great comfort food with memories of students’ dorms and bed-sitter days) as long as you have staples, such as, pasta; rice; potatoes; bread; olive oil; butter; eggs; a tin of sardines or smoked oysters or mussels, you can always put together a tasty something.) There is an exquisite dialectic between a purist and a realist.’
‘Cooking for oneself is an act of self-respect; cooking for others is sharing a passion. Be humble; be proud; enjoy. And always remember: Eating well is the best revenge.’
The 2nd edition is available on Amazon, Waterstones and the major on-line publishers.