Chen Di, CEO of YouMi: Red Dragon rising!

Despite the global a priori about China’s economy being closed and its iron-fisted state-run system jeopardising its successful emergence into the global business landscape, the reality paints quite a different picture. There is a growing number of Chinese mobile internet firms that are venturing overseas. Among them, the 29 year-old founder and CEO of YouMi – a Chinese Mobile Advertising Network, Mr. Chen Di, is currently blazing the trail for this new wave of China’s entrepreneurial disruptors.

Entrepreneurial Disruptor

By age 26, Chen Di was already spotted by Forbes China as one of the most promising Chinese entrepreneurs to follow. As a teenager, he had toyed with the idea of real estate, then considered finance or technology, but finally decided on a mobile application advertising company. Then in 2009, together with a few fellow students from South China University of Technology, Chen founded YouMi, and has never looked back. ”If I failed to do something big in my fourth year at the university, I wouldn’t be able to keep up with my teammates who studied at prestigious universities,“ Chen told China Daily USA. YouMi was one of the first mobile advertising platforms in China, and two years after its official launch, it really took off thanks to an angel investment of about 10 million yuan. YouMi expected its revenue to grow to between 80 million yuan and 100 million yuan—and that’s only for 2015!

Conquest of the West

Over the past two decades, an unprecedented explosion of entrepreneurism has transformed the land of what seemed to be a sleeping dragon into a vibrant global business hub. From the renowned e-commerce giant, Alibaba, to the lesser known Baidu, Tencent, YouMi, and Xiaomi, these companies are getting ready to take on the global markets…and earn a recognized place in the global economy. YouMi, one of the industry’s top three Chinese companies, drew the attention of internet industry players worldwide at last year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC 2015) in Barcelona where they launched their newly developed global mobile ad platform Adxmi. Major players like Telefonica in Spain have already signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Chinese mobile advertising platform giant, certainly ample proof that YouMi is ready for the big time!

YouMi’s products have been copied by more than 20 companies in China, but this worries Chen Di not a bit. He firmly believes that “You need to innovate constantly, launch new products in a timely manner and respond to the market.” Products in China are becoming more and more sophisticated, designed with locally developed technology, yet in complete compliance with global standards. While companies in the rest of the world wonder how they can access the fast-rising incomes of China’s 1.4 billion consumers, YouMi has already set sail to conquer the West!

Does Chen Di inspire you? Post your comments below!

Picture above: Courtesy of Forbes China

Leadership and Management style: East tops West

Different cultures can have radically different leadership and management styles, and if you want to do business cross-border, you better be fully cognizant of what it implies. While, American CEOs tend to adopt a more charismatic and innovative style and European leaders would opt for a participative and socially responsible approach, Chinese leaders, who have the reputation of a directive and didactic modus operandi, have evolved and become more people-centric and insightful. 

Western Leadership : Influential and ethical

Western leadership principles have been focusing on elements such as profits, human relationships, and long term strategic planning. Whether in Europe or USA, employers emphasize the value of respecting employees, valuing their contribution and promoting their career development. Now what about the personality of those business leaders? Nowadays, U.S. executives are usually known to be charismatic and influential, whose fame and force of personality impress the global business landscape as well as the media! Charismatic leadership has come to be the ideal for American businesses: Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos incarnate those magnetic leaders!

The business culture in Europe may be a bit less star-focused but EU leaders believe in effective and ethical leadership incorporating a more participative governance model. Corporate Responsibility is not a fad, but an imperative for the European counterparts like Stanislas de Quercize (CEO of Cartier), Timotheus Höttges (Deutsche Telekom), Jean-Paul Agon (L’Oreal), and Gérard Mestrallet (Engie ex-GDF Suez), just to name a few, who value above all sustainable business growth.

Chinese Leadership : Ying and Yang

Profit was seen as contrary to the righteousness of mainstream Confucian teachings. Traditional Chinese leadership principles include considering ethical aspects above the achievement of profit but also comprise leading by example in terms of promoting equality, simple living and harmony. Today, Chinese workplaces have evolved and the concepts of leadership too. Long gone are the days when the social and cultural environment in China was extremely hostile to private enterprises. By integrating methods from Western management approaches, through education abroad and exposure to Western organisations present in China, Chinese leadership paradigms have changed but without losing sight of their rich cultural heritage.

There may still be major disparities like for example, political connections and family control tend to be more common in Asian businesses, unlike Westerners who groom their successors from talented employees in the workforce instead. Yet, Chinese business leaders including Jack Ma (Alibaba), Lei Jun (Xiaomi), Ma Huateng (Tencent) and Wang Jianlin (Wanda) have successfully reversed the prevailing cultural prejudice.

While the leadership style of Westerners haven’t evolved much in the last decade, the new generation of Chinese leaders have made a great leap forward by taking the best from traditional Chinese and Western leadership styles.

In fact, Global Business leaders can really make a difference in the way corporations affect the world. Clearly, no one leadership model is a universal remedy. But nowadays, CEOs are expected to adopt a more people-focused, ethical, innovative, long-term thinking and planning approach, and providing for the interests of a broad range of stakeholders, including the environment and future generations. Well, it is no easy job, as Globalization and major global concerns keep challenging leadership styles and practices as a whole! 

What other qualities do you expect to see in Global Business Leaders? Share your thoughts!

Picture above: Courtesy of Brainsonic ©