1. John McCoy has over 40 years' senior level experience working for major international banks. Through his international work, he has gained a thorough understanding of the implications of developing economies and the need for banking and financial sector reforms in those economies. He has a comprehensive understanding of the banking and financial sectors in South East Asia and Central Asia through his experience working in Vietnam, Lao PDR, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan working on various Technical Assistance projects for Asian Development Bank, EBRD, World Bank and IFC from 1997 to present.2. During his banking career, McCoy has been on nine Boards of Directors of banks and NBFIs. He has set up two banks (Indonesia - 1981 to 1983 and Australia 1985-1987) and has been involved in the liquidation of two banks. He managed (under contract) the corporate Insolvencies (Bad Debt Recoveries) of two major banks in Australia during the period 1990 to 1996 i.e. Westpac Banking Corporation and State Bank of New South Wales. Several years ago, I was on an assignment in Vietnam for one of the Donor organizations looking at the transi-tion of the economy and banking system. As I traveled around the country, I spoke with many people about their lives today and the struggles they had had coming out of the Vietnam War. I became intrigued with the lives of the people, their honesty and acceptance of the past. "Things happened for a reason," they would tell me. "Today we must accept what happened and get on with living."The courage I found with the Vietnamese, both in the north and in the south, pointed me in a direction of creat-ing a story about these proud people. They have had struggles, but they face each day with new hopes. This book is fiction. The characters are based on a multitude of characters in real life. The Vietnamese people that I met with frequently were open with the stories of the past and they were able to relate the events of the past emanating from the war days with the present. Their stories captured my imagination as I sat up at night letting the fingers do the writing.This book became an extension of my life as I lived and worked with the people. As they told me their stories, I felt closeness seldom found in other cultures.Leaving It Behind is fiction but the situations created in this book can apply to each of us.