John J. O'Sullivan was born in Limerick in 1930 and trained as a compositor/typographer. He worked in the Irish Press and Limerick Leader, and joined Radio Éireann in 1956 as a scriptwriter and reporter. In 1962, he was appointed IDA representative in Cologne (where he now lives) and became director of its campaign to attract direct investment from Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Scandinavia. Over the following eighteen years, he spent two years with the EU in Brussels, and was subsequently advisor to UNIDO on development aid missions in developing countries.