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Personal Statement

Program: MBA at Harvard Business School

“Amicus Plato，Amicus Aristotle，sed Magis Amicus VERITAS” I was immediately fascinated by this thought-provoking school motto of Harvard University the first time I read it more than a decade ago. It has since served as a constant reminder of the objective of life that I should pursue. Both as my life philosophy and as my guideline, it has exerted power impact on each choice I have made in the course of my academic and career development. Those choices have in turn enabled me to achieve important breakthroughs in both my academic work and in my career progress and have permitted me to develop considerable expertise in scholarly research and in business management.

Even as an undergraduate at Zhejiang University of Technology majoring in Foodstuff Engineering at the Department of Light Industry, I displayed intense interest in business. While working part-time for a local food company, I assumed responsibility for organizing the production and the sale of zongzi, a pyramid-shaped dumpling made of glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves and eaten during the Chinese traditional Dragon Boat Festival. I traveled on bus late at night to local bamboo-growing mountain regions to buy bamboo leaves. The difficulties of my virgin business attempt and the joy ensuing from its success made me all the more interested in developing myself into a successful businessman. My formal business experience began with my job as a salesman of office equipment. On one hand I had to learn the skills of equipment installation and repairing and on the other hand I had to visit prospective clients to sell them the equipment. As a matter of fact, I was responsible for equipment procurement, promotion, installation and post-sale services include repairing. My diligent efforts led to very encouraging sales performance.

In 1992, I was appointed manager of KeLong Automatic Equipment Company of Zhejiang Province. When I just took office, the company’s business performance was rather discouraging—business management was disorganized, business scope was too narrow, and profit-making ability was poor. It was a grave challenge for me. But my desire for success was unquenchable and I concretized this desired into specific steps. I undertook bold measures in four major fields: capital management, business expansion, marketing, perfection of company system. In implementing those reorganization measures, I showed full respect for each employee, providing them with ample opportunities for the fulfillment of their personal value, for I believed that the active participation of the employees was essential to the achievement of the company’s strategic goals. Within four years, the annual business volume of our company increased from 200,000 RMB to 5,000,000 RMB, with a growing market share. What made me especially proud of myself was that I creatively ventured into the duty-free automobile business, with an annual sales volume of 50 automobiles. This figure was considered a surprising miracle by my business competitors because transactions in duty-free automobiles have so far remained under government monopoly.

My role as manager over the past few years has made me increasingly aware that finance and law are two necessary tactical weapons for a company’s business success. They pertain to a company’s survival or demise. An accomplished decision-maker at top management should have erudite knowledge in both economics and in law. This motivated me to relinquish various alluring opportunities at major domestic and international financial institutions such as Shanghai PuDong Development Bank, Shanghai International Trust & Investment Co. Ltd, and Asia Business Consulting Co. Ltd. Instead, I shifted my focus of interest to law. Since 1999, I have been working at Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Justice. In 2000, I obtained my license as a practicing lawyer. In 2001, I attended a special WTO Training Program launched by Shanghai Municipal Government. I received professional trainings by both Chinese and American specialists (part of the program was carried out in the American Consulate in Shanghai as DVC Conference). The Harvard MBA program focuses on the research and teachings about the economic, political, social and legal environment in which business operates and emphasizes on students’ understanding of such an environment. I believe that my 8-year work experience has allowed me to gain an intimate understanding of a large part of the Chinese environment.

Another way that has contributed importantly to my understanding of China’s economic, political, social and legal environment is the MBA program I undertook from 1996 to 1998 at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (my GPA was 3.48, ranking top second among a total of 380 students in the same grade and winning me the honor of Student of Excellence). During this fruitful program, my work experience allowed me to bring my theoretical knowledge to bear on realistic problems. My research interests covered a wide range of areas and in the year 1998 I published a total of 7 research papers in the country’s leading academic journals. They involved many sensitive and live issues in China’s economic reform—Human and Non-human Resource Capital in Enterprise Organizations, The Issue of Agency Cost for State-Owned Enterprises during China’s Economic Transformation, The Administrative Structure of Open Enterprises and the Financial Market, The Wave of Merging in the Age of Information, A Perspective of Market in Crisis, etc (please refer to my Resume for more detailed descriptions). The careful and detailed investigations I conducted in those papers allowed me to arrive at some illuminating and penetrating conclusions that could provide useful guidance for Chinese enterprises. My thesis The Financial Market and Enterprise Administrative Structure presented an in-depth analysis of how the perfection of China’s financial market could contribute to enterprise management (I later discovered that the issues I raised in my thesis coincided with a major research project by the State Social Science Foundation, a fact which indirectly indicates the value of my research). I believe that in academic research I have the precious quality of foresight that can enable me to see far ahead of others.

Among many important issues of enterprise management, I am most interested in how to make accurate evaluations of potential risks and to formulate an organization’s strategic orientation based on such an evaluation. Other related issues include: Is it possible to construct quantitative and qualitative models? How to create a sound corporate administrative structure to reach corporate goals? How to balance the rigidity and the flexibility of corporate administrative structure? Those questions are interrelated and their answers will necessarily vary according to the conditions of social and economic development. At present, we can find no statistical data that may allow in-depth analysis on those issues. Another problem is that scholarship conducted on those issues tends to be too academic and theoretical, deficient in pragmatic value and not updated. By contrast, Harvard MBA program offers advanced courses in quantitative economics and has accumulated an abundance of basic statistical information, not to mention the unparalleled research conditions. My long-term objective is to promote, with the knowledge and expertise that I can acquire from a quality education of your program, the establishment and the improvement of basic statistical data for business administration in China whereby to contribute to the development of China’s business administration on the theoretical level.

Seven years ago when I reached the first summit of my business career, I discontinued that career in favor of an MBA education at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, which exposed me to a totally new horizon. Now, better prepared and qualified, I have decided to pursue yet another MBA program at your esteemed school, a program which will be far more advanced and rewarding to me. I believe that this program will help me achieve immense progress in my professional knowledge and practical abilities necessary for developing myself into a business elite in the not-too-distant future.