Robert Jensky left New York expecting to be away for about a year. That was in 1988, and he's still away. Travels took him round the world, mostly teaching English as a foreign language.

There was Singapore and Southeast Asia. He crossed Africa, from Morocco to Durban, on a motorcycle. Out of money, he sold the bike for a plane ticket – which led him to pick flowers at a private kibbutz in Israel.

And this, with qualifications including a bachelor degree in applied theoretical mathematics, a bachelor in community mental health, masters in social work and masters in education.

"For Language Link, I was bit of a wild card," he admits with a cheeky grin. "My travels sold me to them. They wanted someone multicultural, self-sufficient, someone who'd worked where there were no blackboards, books or photocopiers."

In short, Language Link's London headquarters wanted a director of studies – for Moscow. They wanted a power-pack with the vision of how an educational program should be set up and run.

Jensky got the job and flew out to a fledgling school with two local teachers and more students than they were comfortable with.

Then he turned the joint venture into a wholly owned Language Link operation, as now-promoted country director.

"But it wasn't all me," he confided. "I couldn't have done it without Natasha."

Natasha Bondareva that is. "She was already working with another educational company, and I knew she would be the key to getting Language Link into gear."

They've built the business together. He's mapping goals, structures and strategies including online interactive distance learning, a video and publications library of international colleges and universities for students with wide horizons, and working with Language Link's international operations to realize the other visions he arrived with in 1994.

Bondareva's role involves top-level negotiations with agencies like the Department of Education and simply "knowing everything else that only a Russian can know about operating here, adapting what I put together to make them work in the Russian market."

Two teachers have now become 60 in Moscow, backed by marketing, public relations and IT support, course development professionals, materials design specialists and a unit serving students wanting to do language or business studies abroad.

"We're strong enough now to develop a real local identity," Jensky said. "We've even designed a new Language Link logo for Russia, adapted with the Cyrillic alphabet in mind. At the busiest times, we're running up to 40 schools throughout Russia, but while big numbers are impressive, we want to be the most highly respected."

– MICHAEL STEDMAN