In the service of 46 masters

Working for some of the richest people in the country brings rich rewards, Cheng Hong finds

Many people complain about how difficult it is to please their boss. Spare a thought then for Cheng Hong, who has 46 of them, all highfliers who demand a lot of themselves and of others.

Cheng's job is to come up with activities that will appeal to these bosses, people who run business empires that employ tens of thousands of people and whose motto could well be "Success".

Cheng is secretary-general of the China Entrepreneur Club, founded in 2006 and comprising 46 leaders of top private companies in various industries across the country.

The club, which aims to promote the business leaders' entrepreneurial spirit and sustainable business, is nonprofit, but, as you might expect with such an outfit, Cheng runs it like a business.

But coming up with ideas for events, making them work and getting these powerful people to take part are three different things.

"They are leaders who give orders to thousands of people and always have many options," Cheng says. "I cannot make them come along to our activities just because they're members. All I can do is plan worthwhile activities, things they will think are worth the time and effort."

Those activities, developed by about 40 people who work for the club, include: annual international visit of a week or two that includes meetings with top government officials, businesspeople and academics, visits to members' companies to point out problems and to learn from one another, China Green Companies Summit, an annual economic business forum on sustainable business development, overseas study opportunities for entrepreneurs, charity programs and many others.

Liu Chuanzhi, founder and honorary chairman of China's largest PC maker, Lenovo, who is chairman of CEC, attends about 20 of its activities a year, which outstrips the number of activities he attends in his own company. Michael Yu, chairman and CEO of New Oriental Education & Technology Group, is a frequent visitor to CEC offices, on the fifth floor of a building near Zhongguancun, often referred to as China's Silicon Valley, in northwest Beijing.

Liu Donghua, founder of CEC, says CEC's success is largely due to the "golden team that Cheng Hong leads".

Cheng, ever faithful to the business spirit, refers to all activities that CEC initiates as products. As with any product manager with an eye on consumer feedback, Cheng says that if members give an activity the thumbs down, staff will look at it again to see if it can be improved.

In running the club she takes hints from the way some of its members and their companies operate. For example, she says, many household appliances companies cannot make money producing TV sets, but TCL Corporation, whose chairman Thomson Li, is a member, manages to do so. While many steel companies in China are losing money, Delong Holding Limited, whose CEO Ding Liguo is a member, makes money. And while the shipping industry is at a low ebb, SITC International Holdings Co Ltd, whose chairman Yang Shaopeng is a member, is doing well. In all those cases, she says, they succeed because they focus on what they are good at.

"I think Chinese people need to be professional in their specific field, doing something in-depth and doing it well, instead of doing things on a grand scale, but half-heartedly."

Before starting to work for CEC in 2006, Cheng, born in Zibo, Shandong province, was a journalist for 15 years, including working as a TV presenter and for the magazine China Entrepreneur. Her duties have included editing, managing, producing, reporting and hosting.

Although she had dealt with many of the entrepreneurs as a journalist, she says, she once saw them in the narrow way she thinks many people do, as rich people who have had their wealth handed to them on a plate and who are obsessed with money.

Eight years on, those ideas have evaporated and she not only enjoys her job but cares about her 46 bosses. She says she is aware of their 16-hour work days, their lack of sleep because of stress, their passion for life and the tears they shed over human disasters.

"There are so many stereotyped pictures of them out there. Yes, they can act as prudent businesspeople, and they may sometimes seem to act quite arbitrarily, but what we see in CEC is their bright, positive and responsible sides.

"What I get from them is that the way we think about business needs to be enlarged and that the spirit of entrepreneurship deserves respect when there is fair competition, honesty and self-restraint."

Cheng's own way of dealing with stress is to bake, and she says she has shared many of her breads and cakes with CEC members.

Living simply is something she has learned from her employers, she says. That includes walking to work, which is 40 minutes from where she lives, if the weather permits, reading books and watching TV with her teenage daughter.

The outstanding feature of her otherwise nondescript office is a wall that features the handprints of CEC members.

Cheng says she has considered writing a book about the club's members, but feels she is not competent to do the job objectively and completely.

She will continue to brainstorm for them so that they influence more people in China and abroad, she says, and she would eventually like to work with someone to tell the entrepreneurs' story to the world.

Contact the writers through chenyingqun@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 04/04/2014 page16)