Two suitcases and the telephone numbers of two friends of friends: This was what I was carrying when I landed in India on October 22, 1998. What an irony in the fact that just a few years earlier, while boarding a plane from New Delhi to Rome, I had promised to myself not to go back to India, at least not until my retirement age.

But as fate would have it, Stefano Pelle eventually returns to post-liberalized India as an expatriate working for the Perfetti Van Melle Group and what starts from there is a journey through emerging markets.

A common thread throughout When Not in Rome, Dont Do as the Romans Do is the issue of cross-cultural understanding while living or operating in emerging countries. At the heart of Stefanos psyche and his management beliefs are innumerable situations when a one-sided biased perspective would have led to failure in business deals or problems in personal life. More so being an Italian married to an Indian wife, currently settled in the Middle East and with responsibility over a geographical area extending from Bangladesh to Senegal. Overall, the story written here is one of hard work, ambition, and success.