Lutfey Siddiqi shares tales of his travels to land both near and far

Lutfey Siddiqi wears many hats; Adjunct Professor at the Risk Management Institute, National University of Singapore and member of the Global Agenda Council (Financing) at the World Economic Forum, his work keeps him on his toes. But when he’s not toiling away, Lutfey thoroughly enjoys the cultural diversity that is present around the globe.

Who is your style icon?
There isn’t any one person who stands out in all respects and in all contexts. The ideal is probably someone with the dress-sense of David Beckham, the frame of Idris Elba, the elocution of Tom Hiddleston and the presence of Amitabh Bachchan. I’m partial to a good suit and take notice when a suit falls well on someone. My only designer items are a set of Armani suits. I often wear Bangladeshi clothes in receptions abroad. They are almost exclusively by Sparsho, designed by my aunt Ruxana Anwar.
It’s perhaps easier to think of female style icons than men. Of the ones that I’ve met or seen in person, I was most awestruck by Charlize Theron.


If you could time travel where would you go?
I would visit Bangladesh in the 80s. I didn’t spend enough time here but I have an unrealistically rose-tinted view of how things were – how the extended family and the wider society came together in good and bad times, how certain values stood above everything else and how we were thrilled by the little things.

I would visit Bangladesh in the 80s. I didn’t spend enough time here but I have an unrealistically rose-tinted view of how things were

Which country or city, according to you, is great for both business and pleasure and why?
There are some destination-resorts that are meant for both business and pleasure literally in the same place. My kids love Atlantis The Palm in Dubai. It is also the location for the Global Teacher Prize ceremony where this year, I was asked to debate against former Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. Dubai also allows for short excursions such as the four-wheel drive ‘desert safari’. On another occasion, my wife and I climbed the Sydney Harbour bridge before I set off for meetings in the morning. The Chinese city of Xian (famous for its terracota soldiers) and Bali are other places where we’ve mixed business with pleasure. When I’m on my own, I love New York City, especially going for a pre-dawn run through Central Park. I had a recent conference in Reykjavik, Iceland. The Blue Lagoon is an incredible geothermal spa near the airport that is just right for some pre-flight relaxation.
We sometimes append a bit of pleasure at the end of a business trip, though not in the same location. Last year, my wife and sons joined me in Helsinki and we flew a thousand kilometers to the arctic resort of Ivalo (famous for its glass igloos and northern lights) in Northern Finland. Previously, we made similar trips to Karuizawa in Japan and Zermatt in Switzerland.

What do you do when travel starts to feel repetitive? How do you keep each destination exciting when the same options are available?
I used to joke that every city in the world looks like the inbox of my Blackberry! Business trips used to be so all-consuming that there was little scope for tourism. One autumn, I was on the way to Narita airport when my wife called. She asked if I’d taken any photos of the cherry blossoms. I said I hadn’t seen any. She said, ‘just look up!’ And of course, it was all there.
Frankly, I don’t mind things feeling repetitive when I’m travelling on business. Familiarity can be comforting and it allows you to focus on the job. It makes a huge difference when the airline or the hotel chain remembers and acts on your preferences before you have to ask.
My business trips used to be strictly business but nowadays, I make more of an effort to seek out old friends to try slip in a coffee.

If you had to go backpacking with a celebrity who would it be and where would you go?
A celebrity that I love to name-drop for my Bangladeshi friends is Nandita Das. While it wasn’t backpacking, her family and mine went to an outdoor festival together for a couple of days in Cumbria, England. I moderated a fireside chat with her – so it technically qualifies as business and pleasure. We’d met earlier at a leadership course in Harvard. Recently, she humoured me with a kind retweet of my LSE commencement speech.
I’d prefer to go backpacking somewhere cold as opposed to the tropics. I am now thinking of Cortina in the Italian Alps. We had the most memorable vacation there with the children last year. It is also the location of the 1993 movie Cliffhanger, starring Sylvester Stallone. It’d be fun to have him as my celebrity companion and he could tell me all about the making of the movie.

The most underrated city is?
All the clichés about Singapore – it being a ‘concrete jungle’ or a ‘fine city’ or that it is ‘all work, no culture’ – are simply wrong. I have experienced a bit of both; the Expatriate Singapore and Local Singapore and I just love every bit of it.

If you had to settle in a new country, which one would it be and why?
I was born in Dhaka, I went to a convent school in Abu Dhabi, back in Dhaka (where I went to Scholastica), then O’levels in Namibia, IB in Wales, university in England, worked in London, Zurich and Singapore. I don’t need a new country – it’s the settling down part that I am struggling with! For now, London is home although I spend a lot of time in Asia as well.

Photographs from unsplash.com and Lutfey Siddiqi