Charles served in the British army for 5 years. On leaving he retrained at Henley College and then spent the next 8 years in export sales following which he spent 20 years in Eastern Europe leading subsidiaries of organisations such as Xerox, BNP Paribas, Ameritech and France telecom.

In 2003 Charles established a medical recruitment company and then a mobile diagnostic company in Poland that he sold in 2010.

In 1990 he co- founded the British Polish Chamber of Commerce (now the leading C of C in the region) and served as a Director for 6 years. He completed a Masters degree in International Marketing at Strathclyde university.