Encounters with Alumni from Greater China
Ashton Lee (Pembroke 2006) has lived in Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the United States. He received his undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Chicago. Prior to joining the MBA programme at Said Business School, he worked in New York, first in online strategy and consumer marketing for American Express and then as a financial services consultant at KPMG Consulting. After graduation from Oxford he joined Standard Chartered Bank (China) as Head of Consumer Product Strategy, then as VP of Strategic Initiatives. He then became VP of Business Development for the China-based Startup, Travelzen, an online travel booking service with facilities unique in China.
Ashton is a guest speaker and mentor for the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women Initiative, run by the Said Business School at Oxford, which provides 10,000 underserved women around the world with a business and management education.
During June of this year, while riding the high speed rail from Shanghai to Hangzhou I took a moment to marvel at how much China has grown in my brief time here. I first set foot onto the Mainland 5 years ago in the summer of 2006. I backpacked through the cities, often taking long train rides to get to my next destination. Back then it took almost 3 hours to get from Shanghai to Hangzhou. Today it takes 1 hour, sometimes faster. Startling advancements come as no surprise in China, they are expected.
I arrive in Zhejiang University’s Hangzhou campus along with fellow Oxford alumni to help teach a one day course on entrepreneurship in China. The workshop is part of the Oxford-Zhejiang program of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women Initiative which provides 10,000 underserved women around the world with a business and management education. Oxford as a program partner provides administrative guidance, academic expertise, and an international alumni network. It is my second year running a workshop for the program.
I can feel the anticipation from the 100 women entrepreneurs in attendance when I step into the auditorium. The entrepreneurs are a very diverse group both in age, experience, and industries. Many have come from hours outside of the city to attend the program. They all share a common desire to succeed and their enthusiasm can be felt when I speak to them. We each present our individual focus areas from securing bank loans and setting up proper legal entities to marketing a company online in China. The students are very open to learning and anxiously ask questions following each session - How can I better utilize online marketing to grow my business? Managing people is my biggest challenge, how can I set up an employee share scheme to motivate them? As mentors it is gratifying to participate in intriguing discussions, conversations that have the potential to change lives. After each question there were literally another hundred hands up in the air ready to ask more, to learn more. The entrepreneurs are also curious to learn about our own backgrounds, our businesses and why we chose to continue our careers China after Oxford. I tell them about my professional history as well as a little of my own personal story.
I have been living and working in Mainland China for the past 4 years now. I graduated from the Said Business School MBA program, a member of Pembroke College, matriculating in 2006. I had planned to come to China after obtaining my MBA and Oxford proved to be the perfect launching pad. I made great friends from around the world at Said and through the college system, met some of the brightest minds today working on problems within a diverse number of disciplines. The intercollegiate socials and activities also ensured that I would remember my time there as among the most well spent of my life. When I speak about Oxford and our times there with fellow alumni it is like reminiscing about a shared dream. It is a dream that we each carry a piece of and I don’t see any of us ever losing it.
My China careers started full-time in 2007 at Standard Chartered Bank where I was initially the Head of Product Strategy for the retail bank. Within a year I was moved to the retail head office to work on the pan-China strategy as the VP of Strategic Initiatives. This was a perfect start to my China journey, working for a multinational with nationwide ambitions provided me with a laboratory of experimentation and learning. I was able to gain a deeper understanding of the regional diversity within China, how to utilize the right channels, products and tactics to suite local markets. It was a great way to put into practice what I had learned while in Oxford as well as to develop new skills and ways of overcoming challenges. China has given me back more than I had expected. I loved it.
Two years later I saw the opportunity to jump from the back of a horse to the back of a whale and I took it. Domestic e-commerce was growing tremendously fast, and presented a great arena to continue my career in growing businesses in China. I started doing business development for China based online start-ups. It proved to be a rewarding decision. During the past two years I have been able to continue my China education while introducing innovative new products and executing first in China marketing solutions. I pioneered use of group buying (团购) for branding, data gathering, and consumer acquisition. I was also among the first in China to use Location Based Services (定位服务) to similar effect. The feeling of being the first to do something successfully can be addictive; it drives you to keep fighting to do more, to continue to push the boundaries of what has been done before you.
I enjoy sharing what I have learned in my time in China with others who are keen to grow their own businesses here. And grow we all must because China herself is growing fast and waits for no one. The entrepreneurs in Hangzhou all know this eagerly absorbing what the Oxford workshop and the 10,000 women program can provide. That’s why they are here, to get an advantage in their respective businesses, to outgrow the competition, to pursue a better life. One of the entrepreneurs running a textile manufacturing business was inspired by a lecture on pricing and has now adjusted the prices of her products to fight for greater market share. It is great to see how a little inspiration can make a huge impact to someone's life and livelihood. I am entering my 5th year in China, still pursuing my own dreams while helping Chinese entrepreneurs to pursue their own. It has been and continues to be a very rewarding experience.
--- Written in September 2011 ---
Ashton is a guest speaker and mentor for the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women Initiative, run by the Said Business School at Oxford, which provides 10,000 underserved women around the world with a business and management education.
During June of this year, while riding the high speed rail from Shanghai to Hangzhou I took a moment to marvel at how much China has grown in my brief time here. I first set foot onto the Mainland 5 years ago in the summer of 2006. I backpacked through the cities, often taking long train rides to get to my next destination. Back then it took almost 3 hours to get from Shanghai to Hangzhou. Today it takes 1 hour, sometimes faster. Startling advancements come as no surprise in China, they are expected.
I arrive in Zhejiang University’s Hangzhou campus along with fellow Oxford alumni to help teach a one day course on entrepreneurship in China. The workshop is part of the Oxford-Zhejiang program of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women Initiative which provides 10,000 underserved women around the world with a business and management education. Oxford as a program partner provides administrative guidance, academic expertise, and an international alumni network. It is my second year running a workshop for the program.
I can feel the anticipation from the 100 women entrepreneurs in attendance when I step into the auditorium. The entrepreneurs are a very diverse group both in age, experience, and industries. Many have come from hours outside of the city to attend the program. They all share a common desire to succeed and their enthusiasm can be felt when I speak to them. We each present our individual focus areas from securing bank loans and setting up proper legal entities to marketing a company online in China. The students are very open to learning and anxiously ask questions following each session - How can I better utilize online marketing to grow my business? Managing people is my biggest challenge, how can I set up an employee share scheme to motivate them? As mentors it is gratifying to participate in intriguing discussions, conversations that have the potential to change lives. After each question there were literally another hundred hands up in the air ready to ask more, to learn more. The entrepreneurs are also curious to learn about our own backgrounds, our businesses and why we chose to continue our careers China after Oxford. I tell them about my professional history as well as a little of my own personal story.
I have been living and working in Mainland China for the past 4 years now. I graduated from the Said Business School MBA program, a member of Pembroke College, matriculating in 2006. I had planned to come to China after obtaining my MBA and Oxford proved to be the perfect launching pad. I made great friends from around the world at Said and through the college system, met some of the brightest minds today working on problems within a diverse number of disciplines. The intercollegiate socials and activities also ensured that I would remember my time there as among the most well spent of my life. When I speak about Oxford and our times there with fellow alumni it is like reminiscing about a shared dream. It is a dream that we each carry a piece of and I don’t see any of us ever losing it.
My China careers started full-time in 2007 at Standard Chartered Bank where I was initially the Head of Product Strategy for the retail bank. Within a year I was moved to the retail head office to work on the pan-China strategy as the VP of Strategic Initiatives. This was a perfect start to my China journey, working for a multinational with nationwide ambitions provided me with a laboratory of experimentation and learning. I was able to gain a deeper understanding of the regional diversity within China, how to utilize the right channels, products and tactics to suite local markets. It was a great way to put into practice what I had learned while in Oxford as well as to develop new skills and ways of overcoming challenges. China has given me back more than I had expected. I loved it.
Two years later I saw the opportunity to jump from the back of a horse to the back of a whale and I took it. Domestic e-commerce was growing tremendously fast, and presented a great arena to continue my career in growing businesses in China. I started doing business development for China based online start-ups. It proved to be a rewarding decision. During the past two years I have been able to continue my China education while introducing innovative new products and executing first in China marketing solutions. I pioneered use of group buying (团购) for branding, data gathering, and consumer acquisition. I was also among the first in China to use Location Based Services (定位服务) to similar effect. The feeling of being the first to do something successfully can be addictive; it drives you to keep fighting to do more, to continue to push the boundaries of what has been done before you.
I enjoy sharing what I have learned in my time in China with others who are keen to grow their own businesses here. And grow we all must because China herself is growing fast and waits for no one. The entrepreneurs in Hangzhou all know this eagerly absorbing what the Oxford workshop and the 10,000 women program can provide. That’s why they are here, to get an advantage in their respective businesses, to outgrow the competition, to pursue a better life. One of the entrepreneurs running a textile manufacturing business was inspired by a lecture on pricing and has now adjusted the prices of her products to fight for greater market share. It is great to see how a little inspiration can make a huge impact to someone's life and livelihood. I am entering my 5th year in China, still pursuing my own dreams while helping Chinese entrepreneurs to pursue their own. It has been and continues to be a very rewarding experience.
--- Written in September 2011 ---