Two years after Geoffrey See first visited North Korea, the Yale postgraduate received a message from a Pyongyang government official seeking his help.
It was near the end of 2009, soon after a currency devaluation had virtually wiped out the savings of many North Korean small traders. The reform was a disaster, prompting rare bouts of civil unrest and the execution of the finance official supposedly responsible.
But the request from Pyongyang provided a vital opportunity for Mr See, then 24, who had already spent months seeking ways to run business training schemes in North Korea. He now runs Choson Exchange, a non-profit group that has trained hundreds of North Koreans in modern management practices.