About Us

Finding Inspiration in Every Turn

 I am Ralph R. Klemp, the founder of the KL Expats group on Facebook, which has reached in 14 years over 181.000 members and is heading straight to the 200,000-member mark, probably within this year. I myself am a multiethnic, multireligious, multicultural Expat since birth.

Actually,, when my grandmother was to marry my grandfather, her future mother-in-law informed her about a family curse she would inherit: which is: that ‘no child in this family will grow up where his parent has been growing up’. And this is true to this day. My family is spread out in Europe (Germany, UK, Italy, Spain and in North and South America. I was born in Germany, but moved to Italy at the age of 15 where I finished school and did my university. Then, at the tender age of 22 (I arrived on my 22nd birthday), I ventured to Asia: Thailand and Indonesia. What was supposed to be a fun trip turned into a beautiful obsession. I fell in love in (and with) Bali and Indonesia. Mesmerized by its potential, once back in Europe, I started to absorb every bit of information about my future living and working place.

I learned Bahasa Indonesia and became one of the very few people authorized to do official translations Italian-Indonesian.

I then wrote my doctoral thesis in International Marketing about business opportunities in South East Asia at Bocconi University.

I co-founded the Italian Chamber of Commerce for South East Asia. I received multiple recognitions for my work promoting Asean countries in Europe to attract investment.I managed many EU-Asia-Invest projects and even became the mascot of the Indonesian Embassy in Rome and the poster boy of the EU-Asia-Invest office in Brussels.

My first exploration of Malaysia dates back to 1988,          5 years before the start of construction of the Petronas Towers. (The construction of the Petronas Towers began on March 1, 1993. These iconic twin skyscrapers were completed in June 1996 and officially opened on August 31, 1999), I started my own consulting company, Dunia Consulting Group, bridging the gap between Europe and ASEAN with 19 correspondent offices worldwide and completing over 300 projects forall kind of companies touching incredibly many realities. Then in 2011, after the 2007 Lehman Brothers’ debacle, which wiped out most of my business prospects, I finally took the leap. I moved to Malaysia, managing first the start-up of an Italian oil and gas engineering company, followed a few years later with the responsibility for all APAC for telecom towers equipment.

Currently, I am back in the consulting business, concentrating on international mergers and acquisitions and strategic business development in APAC.

KL Expats is not my first Expat blog; A few years before I started the 'Bali Expat group' on Facebook, which became and still is the most important expat blog on the island, creating the foundation for mutual assistance and invaluable information exchange. Over the years, Bali Expats has saved many lives and prevented countless catastrophes. Of course, I could not manage the massive flow and hundreds of posts per day alone. I was lucky enough to be flanked by my ‘angels’, Linda, Caroline and Stuart, and I am very grateful to the amazing Audrey Low who is assisting me here for KL Expats

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for assistance please e-mail me at" KLExpatsGroup@gmail.com