A decade after delaying his post graduate studies because he "wanted to see something of the world" Phillip Greene is running Sheffield International Developments (SID) - with ten years' worth of working all over the globe under his belt.

South Korean-born Phillip was adopted into an American family and grew up in Minnesota before studying for his Engineering degree at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Said Phillip: "I had thought about going to grad school, but I also wanted to go see something of the world. Ten years later and I am still in international work!"

His decade of working all over the world has taken him to far-flung foreign places. Until last summer Phillip, (36), was working for ZOA Refugee Care as a programme manager for the Batticaloa district in Sri Lanka but found his job role changed drastically after the tsunami hit the country in 2004.

Said Phillip: "I was there when it hit and we had to change gear completely and focus instead on relief operation. Previously I had been working with the communities which were being established or re-established after conflict had affected the region but we were suddenly dealing with an entirely different crisis which saw me going directly into communities to work with and for tsunami victims."

Philip assisted victims in 12 camps - the equivalent of about 3,000 families - through the provision of shelter, water and sanitation facilities and relief items, managed more than 40 national staff in five project locations and was part of a team that received an award for the Sri Lankan President for the completion of more than 2,000 tsunami shelters.

Prior to that, Phillip also worked as an emergency/logistic co-ordinator on a humanitarian relief project in Afghanistan where he coordinated and liaised with the UN and other relief agencies and national organisations. During his time there and under the constraints of the Taliban regime he oversaw achievements including the rehabilitation of more than 100 houses in Kabul City and the setting up of a food-for-work programme focused on widows.

Work in a similar role previously took Phillip to Kosovo where he helped establish a new country office and secured funding for relief projects, while as acting desk officer for the Sudan Phillip helped in the start-up of emergency operation in West Darfur. As desk officer for Afghanistan, India, Kenya and Uganda he managed the four countries' programmes portfolio as well as a $3million relief and rehabilitation programme in Afghanistan and as a project manager in Northern Iraq, Phillip was involved in water, sanitation, nutritional and irrigation canal projects.

Now the well-travelled Philip has set his sights on the UK and is heading up the Sheffield Chamber of Commerce-led new city organisation Sheffield International Developments (SID).

Currently finishing a Masters degree in Economics and living in Stockholm with his Swedish wife Marie, Phillip will run SID from his Scandinavian base until the end of the year and will move to the UK in January.

"My role is about building on the work Sheffield has started, generating more of an international perspective for the city," he said. "I want to take the Sheffield ‘brand' out beyond Yorkshire and the UK.

"The chamber of commerce has achieved a lot in the last 150 years and in particular has laid many foundations in its capacity building work with recent projects in Cambodia and trade missions to places such as Egypt. I want to take some of this success further afield into other emerging and developing countries.

"But this is a two-way process - it is also about how other countries across the world can contribute to Sheffield and its growth, too. We want the city to learn more about the key components of economic regeneration through becoming more international."