Essay26

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What are the three most important accomplishments in your life?

The three most significant achievements in my life are: winning acceptance into the Beijing University, winning a job with Tigerta Group Corporation Ltd., and winning the position of general manager of Tigerta's South African chapter.

On the strength of the high scores that I obtained in 1990 in the National University Entrance Examinations, which are held every year to screen high school graduates for higher-learning, I got to enroll myself into the Beijing University, considered by most people as China's best institution of higher education. Five years at Beida, as it is known in Chinese, endowed me with extensive knowledge, broad perspectives, confidence in myself and a strong sense of mission and responsibility. I entered into Beida a naive small town teenager, but, five years later, I graduated a mature man.

One sign of my maturity was that I chose to work for Tigerta Group Corporation Ltd., based in the boomtown Shenzhen, across the border from Hong Kong. This went against the trend among university graduates in Beijing, most of whom prefer to stay in the nation's capital even today. But I wanted to join a good-sized company in a pioneering city. Shenzhen was an ideal place as it was the venue where most of China's reforms are first tested before they are dropped or adopted nationwide. Working for Tigerta, one of the country's top 300 companies, as its CEO's assistant, I learned first-hand how a modern Chinese is managed. By participating in the policy deliberations, I gradually developed my own thinking on management.

In 1996, I was sent to South Africa to be Tigerta's top gun in opening up that country's market, which was closed to Chinese businesses for decades as the Chinese government refused to deal with its former white government. In South Africa, I worked perforce independently, which forced me to keep learning and exploring. I had to come up with a solution to every problem, big or small, no matter what. The pressure was intense, but my entrepreneurial spirit was tempered. In South Africa, I got to improve my command of English by leaps and bounds, since it was my working language every day.
The hardship that necessarily accompanies expatriate businessmen did not deter me, but rather helped to steel my will and give me unprecedented will power.

ZZ:tol24.com