He left the UK to study Japanese politics and economics at Nanzan University in Nagoya, Japan, on a Rotary Foundation scholarship after which he worked for Toyota as a motor industry analyst for four years.
He was the recipient of a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Travelling Fellowship in 1992 and he spent some time in Australia thanks to it. He researched the training of Japanese and English interpreters while he was there. He set up the UK’s first MA in Interpreting and Translation for Japanese/English and Chinese/English at the University of Bath after returning.
He joined the business school INSEAD, based in France, in 1999 as a regional director for Japan and Korea. Jenkins transferred to Singapore two years later to become director of INSEAD’s executive education department in Asia. He then joined the Centre for Creative Leadership in Singapore as managing director and vice president before returning to the UK in 2009. He is now CEO of charitable trust Roffey Park.