Timing is everything, as Emma Sherrard discovered when she arrived in Hong Kong right after September 11, 2001, looking for a job. There was no call for an events organisation specialist from Britain in a city that was in no mood for celebrating.
Sleeping on floors, she parked herself at a computer in the Hollywood Road Pacific Coffee. From there she tried everything from telesales to tapping into her father's dated connections from his Jardine Matheson days in the 1980s.
Then, by luck, her curriculum vitae landed on the desk of Mervyn Davies, chief executive of Standard Chartered Bank. 'It was a great place for it to land,' she admits, without explaining precisely how it got there.
She was granted 30 minutes with Mr Davies. He was impressed that she had come out on spec and promised to see what he could do. His bank could offer her nothing but, as he was then chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce, he sent her to see them.
Although impressed by her experience, which ranged from organising the UBS summer party at London's Tate Modern to staging the Duke of Edinburgh's birthday bash at the Guildhall, the chamber told her no position existed there either - so they would have to create one.
'Luckily, BritCham is all about events and organising,' says Ms Sherrard, 29, who chose a career in events because she was 'organised, efficient and bossy'.