1.    How Long have you known the Applicant and in what Capacity?* 750 Characters
I have known the applicant in my capacity as former executive vice president of China Merchants Securities and head of CMS's Beijing Branch Office. As Mr. XXX 's immediate superior, I was in charge of all the business activities including investment banking, merging & acquisition, direct investment. I transferred to WI Harper Group recently.

2.    What do you consider to be His/Her strengths?* 750 Characters
Mr. XXX xxx who is currently seeking entrance into your prestigious MBA programme. He is a promising young man and a potential outstanding leader on China's capital market, with well-defined objectives, a strong sense of mission, creativity, and the determination to seek a high-achieving career. He is a most worthy candidate for the course.

3.    What do you consider to be His/Her main weaknesses?* 750 Characters
What I like least about working with Mr. XXX is his tendency to overlook certain details that he would deem insignificant. On occasions, he would take things for granted and would underestimate the difficulties he was to face. This would often take him by surprise and plunge him into desperate situations, although he had his own ways of getting out of the dilemmas.     

4.    How do you rate His/Her Academic Ability? If He/She is about to take any further examinations, what results do you anticipate
      He/She will achieve?* 750 Characters
Mr. XXX developed an outstanding academic foundation during his undergraduate programme, which was what we prized when recruiting him. What distinguished him from the rest of his fellow students was that he had several articles about finance published and served as research assistant when he was at university. After joining us, he always kept himself well informed of the latest developments in the country’s financial market as a whole and the PE market in particular. He would conduct regular studies and come up with investigation reports that serve as a valuable basis for our investment decision-making. His studies are academically sound—rigorous, logical, with substantial statistics, and well-founded conclusions.

5.    How well do you think the applicant will respond to a very rigorous and intellectually demanding course?* 350 Characters
Prior to joining us, Mr. XXX worked at Morgan Stanley and received rigorous and intellectually demanding internal training at this leading investment bank in the world. At CMS, he also received similar training. His performance in those training programmes was outstanding, thus he will be equally successful in your challenging MBA programme.

6.    In what way do you believe the applicant will benefit from the course?* 350 Characters
Mr.. XXX has accumulated nearly three years of professional experiences and has been performing important management responsibilities. Your MBA will help him reflect on his past experiences from which he can see his successes while learning his lessons. In addition, the course will prepare him for ever increasingly managerial duties he will face in the future.

7.    What unique ability and experience do you believe the candidate could bring to the course?* 750 Characters
What Mr. XXX can contribute to your course will be his unique knowledge about China’s financial industry, the chances and challenges that it faces in connection with the on-going global financial crises, his experience of doing business in the unique business environment in China covering commercial, legal, and cultural aspects. Mr. XXX also indicated to me his readiness to meet interested British or European PE professionals with whom to operate PE business in China. I hope that he can make some special contributions to your course.

8.    If you have any further comments which you consider would be helpful. Please use the following space, or attach a separate letter.

Respected Oxford MBA Admissions Committee:

Mr. XXX was appointed leader of Beijing PE Fund Team at the strong recommendation of Mr. XXX xxx, chairman of CMS. With his powerful learning abilities, he soon adapted to his new role and became fully integrated into his team, winning the trust of his team members and accumulating valuable managerial experiences. His leadership is characterized by bold creativity. Usually, we do not refer to cases of state-owned enterprises as potential targets of investment projects as the level of profitability of those companies is quite low. However, Mr. XXX, with his acute insights, sees exciting prospects for those enterprises as they are transforming into share-holding companies and adopting modern enterprise systems, putting in place the top management with advanced concepts of corporate governance. Combined with their advantages of conventional government support, they will enjoy unlimited growth. As a result, state-owned enterprises have been identified an important project targets. Another important feature of his leadership is that, when formulating plans, he would provide general guidance and broad framework, giving sufficient flexibility for team members to exercise their own creativity and initiative. His leadership and management style are rigorous but dynamic, adhering to his personality while assimilating useful experiences from others. He is always the first in his team to face challenges and he leads by setting convincing examples to his team members through accomplishing the largest business volume. He is a man of discipline and principle. He does criticize his subordinates, but only based on facts. More often, he uses positive motivations as a means to heighten team morale.

Mr. XXX has demonstrated many outstanding qualities but I would like to comment particularly on his exceptional quality of self-confidence. In his conversations with me, he repeatedly emphasized Allan Greenspan as his role model. He said that he has read Greenspan's biography for a number of times and has drawn great inspirations from this influential figure. He is convinced that everyone can be an influential leader in one's own right as long as one is aspiring and persevering. I believe that in many important ways Mr. XXX has sufficient reasons to be self-confident. At such a young age, he has already accomplished responsibilities beyond most of his peers and he is well on his way to become a potential leader of China's capital market. This self-confidence will be the primary motive force underlying all his future endeavours.

I have followed the development of all the five major financing projects undertaken by Mr. XXX and his team and provided necessary supervision over those projects. Mr. XXX remained accountable to me and would present me with regular reports. What I liked Mr. XXX most is his intelligence, which has enabled him to understand the overall strategies and objectives of the organization and allowed him to work always with a broad picture in his mind. On his own part, once he has formed a plan, he would implement it resolutely and take on independent responsibilities. He would fully motivate his team and turn it into a major contributor to the fulfillment of business objectives at different stages of the year. Being modest, he liked to solicit my guidance as well as criticism that he found most beneficial to his own development. Because of our constructive working relations, we have been associating with each other pleasantly and we have become good friends. Mr. XXX is trustworthy and responsible, working conscientiously, tirelessly, and energetically. There was no need for me to worry that he would fail to complete his tasks and would undermine the overall objective of our organization.

CMS's Beijing Branch Office is consisted of a number of teams working in different fields, like brokering, investment banking, merging & acquisition, direct investment. Compared to other team leaders that were accountable to me, Mr. XXX's exposure to China's capital market is relatively limited. Although he has undertaken some projects, he still lacks in-depth experiences of operating complicated projects and dealing with challenging problems. He has yet to develop his network of personal connections and to heighten his awareness of the complicated market situations and developments. It is always advisable to stay fully alert to financial risks and to take necessary steps of precaution. As a future business leader, he has to develop a comprehensive knowledge of various aspects of business administration that go into effective leadership.

When working with managers/supervisors, Mr. XXX is polite and respectful; taking the instructions he received seriously and would do his best to motivate his team for the full implementation. In this way, he makes important contributions to the fulfillment of the overall business objectives of our organization. However, in carrying out his duties, he is not totally passive, simply doing what he was told to do. Instead, he would give important feedback based on his actual operations of the projects and make his own original proposals that help modify our overall strategy. When working with his peers, the team leaders in other business fields, he would be modest, learning from their successful experiences as most of his peers have longer professional experiences than he. He would have regular discussions with them so that he can keep himself informed of the overall situation across different fields of the financial market. In this way, he can do a better job in his own decision making. Toward his subordinates, he is democratic and eclectic, recognizing the strength of individual members and their positive contributions, and adopting whatever reasonable proposals put forward by them. However, he is authoritative, imposing strict requirements on them. Yet, he is also very sociable and friendly; when having coffee during the breaks, he demonstrates no class distinction or detachment characteristic of the more senior administrators.

China's capital market offers infinite opportunities and the person who can seize those opportunities will be the ultimate winner. Mr. XXX is dynamic and enterprising, the kind of person who can work wonders in this land of promise. As a matter of fact, he has already worked wonders. In China, it is extremely hard for a student to enter the investment industry immediately upon completing his or her undergraduate programme. But Mr. XXX did it by entering Morgan Stanley Hong Kong Headquarters, the world's first-tier investment bank. At the age of 23, he has already effected a critical transformation from the sell side to the buy side by becoming team leader of China Merchants Securities, engaged in PE industry. This is the course which most investment bankers follow in their life and they undergo this major transformation at the mature stage of their career. If he keeps the present momentum of career development, I would not be surprised that within ten years he will be in a senior managerial position or in the top management of a major investment institution of China.    

Yours faithfully

XXX xx