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Ian CheeWah – farewell to an old friend and colleague.

January 17th, 2010 · 14 Comments



A smile, a laugh and a hug – these are the things that spring to mind when remembering Ian.


I first met Ian in London in 2001 when I joined Sapient. He was the first senior manager who gave me a run down of the company culture and how best to operate effectively within it. This was critical for me as the company definitely had some cultural quirks, was very US centric and quite different from the work environments I had experienced up until then. Ian was quick to spot this and mentor me into a shape that would somehow fit the company plus leverage my personality and skills. I soon became part of Ians’ team focusing on Telecommunications, Media and Government projects, he was great at building business, his knack for building relationships with clients came into play here. We also spent quite a bit of time developing pitches, Ian seemed to love this as it was a more creative process and allowed him to use his imagination and vision. I personally enjoyed working with him very much at that time, it was a lot of fun and he made it easy to get motivated and come into work in the mornings. We traveled to New York to setup a team to work on a client based out of New Jersey, Ian was very proud of his home town and was quick to show us brits around and introduce us to fellow Sapient colleagues there. Having fun outside of work was equally important to Ian, this is where the real team building activity occurred – and Ian knew all the cool places to go in Manhattan to eat and drink. Over time I grew very fond of Ian and we became friends outside of work, as did many other colleagues of our at the time. Ian was always keen to bring people together to celebrate life, living for the moment you could say. But Ian could be serious too and was very supportive whenever I had any personal crisis and helped give me perspective when I was going through my divorce, helping me to focus on work and the future -  I will always be thankful to him for that.


After leaving Sapient we remained good friends and met up occasionally to have a drink at The Sanderson, which seemed to be one of his favourite haunts at the time, life was an endless bustle down there and I met a few of his exotic friends. I moved to Germany shortly after this and we remained in touch online, facebook etc. The last time we connected he told me that he was hoping to ‘swing by’ in Berlin soon, I was hoping for this.


Ian will be missed, there is no doubt…he must have hundreds of friends all over the globe who I am sure all feel a personal loss of some kind. My condolences go out to his family – who I heard a lot about but never met.


His humanness, warmth, humour and ability to life life to the full is an inspiration to all of us.



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14 responses so far ↓

  • 1 stephen mahoney // Jan 17, 2010 at 5:52 pm

    Hi Darryl
    Its Stephen, thank you for flagging this up.
    Ian is and will be sadly missed by all his friends and family who loved him, people he worked with and people he encountered in life.
    He was one of my best friends and I spent countless hours in his company running around London and New York, laughing and enjoying life to the max.
    God bless him and he leaves behind his a warm and kind spirit, one that will never die.
    All of our heart-felt sympathies go out his family, who I know are devastated.

  • 2 Darryl // Jan 17, 2010 at 8:18 pm

    Hi Stephen,
    Yes he will leave a hole, he was totally unique. Heart felt sympathies from Berlin.
    d

  • 3 stephen mahoney // Jan 17, 2010 at 9:02 pm

    Ian’s family have sent the funeral details

    Frank E Campbell
    1076 Madison Avenue NY 10028
    Saturday January 23,2010
    10:30am viewing
    12:30-1:30 is the final service

    Please pass along to those who may need it please.

    Thank you.

    Sent from my iPhone

  • 4 Catherine Faure // Jan 17, 2010 at 9:17 pm

    Stephen it’s Catherine
    i would love to touch base with you

    friend, lover and mother to liam
    I am on face book or you can e-mail me
    catherine@faurenutrition.com

  • 5 stephen mahoney // Jan 17, 2010 at 10:44 pm

    Hi Catherine,
    I have sent you email.
    I don’t do facebook.
    Did we meet-if so when?
    Regards
    Stephen

  • 6 Jeff // Jan 19, 2010 at 7:56 pm

    I worked with Ian years ago. Do you know what happened?

  • 7 Chitra Rao // Jan 21, 2010 at 11:09 pm

    Dear Darryl

    I’m not sure if we met when Ian was living in London, but Stephen told me about your website and I wanted to thank you for your dedication to Ian, your fond memories and thoughts are echoed.

    Ian is much loved by everyone who had the pleasure of knowing him and will be missed by all.

    My deepest sympathies are with his family and friends.

    Ian’s Friend
    Chitra

  • 8 Darryl // Jan 22, 2010 at 8:23 pm

    Hi Chitra,

    Thanks I don’t we did meet, did you know there was a service planned in London? Check Ians’ FB page.

    Regards

    d

  • 9 Chitra // Jan 23, 2010 at 7:15 pm

    Hi Darryl

    I didn’t know there was a service planned in London.

    I’m not on facebook so can’t find that information, do you know when and where it is/was?

    Regards
    Chitra

  • 10 Darryl // Jan 23, 2010 at 8:40 pm

    Hi Chitra,

    Here is the post from FB:
    Alan Mather: Talking to Mike Reid at Sapient … we thought it would be a good idea to hold a memorial service for Ian in London given so many of his friends are in the UK. We are pencilling in 4th February, around 5:30pm at a church in the city. If you would like to come or can help with the logistics, please let me know and I will keep you in the loop.

    I will post more details when they come.

    Cheers

    d

  • 11 Chitra // Jan 24, 2010 at 5:42 pm

    Hi Darryl

    Thank you, would really like more details when the come and appreciate you taking the time and providing the forum to do this.

    Thanks
    Chitra

  • 12 stephen mahoney // Jan 24, 2010 at 5:52 pm

    Dear Alan and Mike,
    I don’t know if we ever met, be I’d rather do the memorial service on Friday 5th, after 6pm, it’ll give most people time to get there after work and if you do something on early Friday evening, no one will have to rush off and few will have work the following day.

  • 13 Andrys // Feb 5, 2010 at 1:38 am

    Sorry to intrude, but what a beautiful face Ian had – the spirit you describe in your tribute really comes through.

    Your tribute had quite an effect while I was reading.

  • 14 Neil // Jul 27, 2010 at 2:15 am

    I only just read this Darryl. It’s quite beautiful; thank you for taking the time to write it… I wish I had been more present when I was at Sapient to be honest as I missed a lot of this nuance… All the best, N

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