New Asia College The Chinese University of Hong Kong eNewsletter

Thanks to the permanent endowment of the Dato' Wong Kwing-keung Fund, the Third Lecture of "New Asia Lectures on Contemporary China" was held in Sir Run Run Shaw Hall, CUHK on 8 February this year. Mr. Savio Kwan, former Chief Operating Officer and President of the Alibaba Group, and currently Chief Executive Officer and Founding Partner of A&K Consulting Co. Ltd., was invited to give a talk on "DREAM: The Alibaba Story" to share with us Alibaba stories from an insider perspective and his experiences growing up. This lecture was moderated by Prof. Ma Xufei of the CUHK Business School.

Mr. Kwan, nicknamed "Ali Mama", was a generous boss that ensured the well-being of his staff. After completing his higher education in the UK, he worked for several international companies before joining Alibaba. Alibaba was experiencing deficit with an estimated remaining life of 5 months at the time he joined the company. However, with his years of management experience, he tackled the imminent crisis within a few months, and not only did he helped the company out of its predicament, but also successfully expanded its business.

He remarked that having the courage to pursue the dream of "making the world an easier place for doing business" was the key to success of the company. Supplemented with a set of appropriate corporate values, the whole company was driven to work together for common goals. He often worked up his colleagues by saying that the best performance of today should be the minimum standard of tomorrow. At the end of the lecture, he encouraged students to strive for advancement and follow their dreams with this same notion.