校友余皪在2018北外国际商学院新生开学典礼上的讲话

撰稿：xuya   2018年09月10日   浏览 3995 次

北京外国语大学国际商学院

校友 余皪

（国际商学院金融学2004级本科生）

Good morning, dear professors of the BFSU IBS, distinguished guests, and above all, the very so massive turnout of more than 700 fellow new school mates!

Welcome on board the most special business school, maybe the most special anywhere in the world, but definitely the most special in Beijing. Thanks for having me here to deliver such a pivotal speech at the inception of your university years and on the 18th birthday of Guoshang, a decade after my own graduation ceremony from the same, sacred institution we all call our home!

14 year ago, when I received the invitation letter from a business school within a university noted for its foreign language education and stepped into an anonymous building that claimed to be the pumping heart of business education of Beiwai, the only feeling I had was suspicion and panic. Indeed, it was extremely difficult to have strong conviction and faith in a business school that was barely 4 years old. It was even younger than me myself! Back in 2004 , BFSU President Peng Long was still heading our business school and Prof. Niu Huayong, Niu Ge, was his most resourceful partner.

I could still vividly remember, the daily routine of Niu Ge was nothing but comforting us that everything will be okay and reassuring us that it would be a golden opportunity to embark on an entrepreneurial adventure alongside the fledgling Guoshang (IBS). What he actually meant, from my personal interpretation, was that while Guoshang had indeed very little solid track record for us to rely on and show off, it could offer us a free, unfettered, liberal, open-minded, supportive academic and business platform that could empower us to pioneer bold ideas , make stupid mistakes , learn from them and eventually become independent business elites and entrepreneurs ourselves. When you have nothing to lose, you have everything to gain .

Today, on Guoshang's 18th birthday, we know for a fact that Niu Ge has successfully delivered on his promises. So please allow me to extend my sincere thanks to President Peng Long and Professor Niu Huayong, for their consistent, conscientious and conspicuous effort against all odds in transforming Guoshang into such a wonderful place that we are so so proud of today!

In the interest of time, I would like to share on the stage just 2 simple, yet rather powerful and actionable advices with you from my years at school , with Goldman Sachs and in starting up my own business . Trust me , it won't be long , just 2 simple advices .

First and foremost, your No.1 priority is to study your second language well, and to be more specific, to study English well for the Chinese new comers. And by "well", I mean "very very proficient in English ", so proficient that your English skill alone could be a great weapon for you to make a great first impression. Remember , you seldom have a second chance to make a first impression.

English has played an indispensable role in my academic life , professional career and not to mention in my own business for the moment . As Niu Ge just mentioned , I won a national public speaking championship with Guoshang , but what you probably do not know is that I got that honor when I was in my freshman year , just like you are now . Thanks to an unquenchable thirst for building vocabulary, a keen desire to understand the world beyond Chinese border, a deep passion of establishing rapport for cross-cultural communication, I have become the direct beneficiary of my own solid English skills, not only in helping me build confidence to win speech contests, but also facilitating the process of recruitment negotiation with Goldman Sachs, the age-old, most revered Wall Street investment bank to list our business school as their target school back in 2008.

Indeed, I could still vividly remember how my English presentation of the feats and records of our graduates of Guoshang impressed the representatives from Goldman Sachs on the 4th floor of the Red Building by the main auditorium. And that year, eventually GS hired 3 students from us for their very pilot financial analyst program starting in Bangalore, India. An extremely rare opportunity for any business school graduate that was not from Peking or Tsinghua University back in 2008.

In Goldman Sachs, my job was to write in-depth English investment research report, to help introduce Chinese companies to global, well predominantly western, investors. Imagine, if we were not up to the standard in terms of expertise in understanding financial terms and presenting investment ideas succinctly , comprehensively and effectively in English, how difficult would it be to market Chinese A-shares, something even the Chinese investors could not figure out and trust in full, to non-Mandarin speaking foreign fund managers.

Alas, in our tumultuous era marked by rising conservatism, mounting xenophobia, ubiquitous impatience amongst regions that share no common beliefs and notoriously abrasive trade frictions especially between the most preeminent superpowers of the world (China and the United States), mastery of English has become not only a personal prerequisite, but also a customary obligation for those who still care about international camaraderie and solidarity. Fortunately, speaking in front of such an eclectic audience of such mind-blowingly diverse background in the largest auditorium in Beiwai has given me and shall give you much confidence.

The second advice is to always embrace changes. That is also why I gave my son the name of "Yiwei", hoping that he could also understand that the only thing that will not change is change itself. And the ability and willingness to expect and embrace changes, instead of staying in your comfort zone and shying away from disruptive innovation, is a basic surviving technique in our ever-changing, new digitally-enhanced world.

Just look around yourself , who could have imagined that Beiwai could shed its image of an old-school language-training university with embarrassingly backward infrastructure, to become such a picturesque university with a state-of-the-art stadium, a grandiose library and the trendy student business incubation center.

Who would have imagined that Guoshang is no longer an obscure, irrelevant business school within a university, but a leading organization that not only sets the pace for Beiwai but also training talents from all over China to shine globally.

Who would have imagined that investment banking and consulting firms are no longer the top choices of graduates, in favor of technology giants in social media, artificial intelligence, blockchain/Bitcoin.

Who would have imagined that we no longer use short text message and email to organize events and apply for jobs, instead we take to WeChat and Weibo for social interactions, professional endeavors and personal promotion. Even the US president now runs a country by updating his Twitter every morning.

Who would have imagined that a real estate developer is now the president of the United States and China is now currently entangled a protracted trade war with it while trailblazing a grand scheme of One Belt, One Road to unite every country possible along the ancient overland Silk Road and modern maritime Silk Road.

We live in an era where Tier-7 cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, with their prohibitively high property price, are no longer the only choices for chasing our Chinese dreams, we have numerous rising Second Tier and Third cities that could offer comparable if not more promising future such as Wuhan, Hangzhou, Chengdu etc. We shall set our sights outside the boundaries of one city and explore nationally and internationally.

We live in an era where changes are constant, and it is exciting to face up to it and make solid steps forward. Facing the changing challenges would require solid academic training, unyielding mentality and a drive to always aim higher and dream bigger. Beiwai has such a culturally diverse environment and Beijing is such a great global metropolis for you to socialize, make the most of it do not let it slip!

In so many words, I have to say that I have made the most of my four years under the auspices and with the magic touch of this business school Guoshang: I won a national championship in English speaking, entered the most prestigious investment bank right after undergraduate training, acquired all basic academic, financial and social skills required to start my own business, and met a school mate 2 years junior than me 17 years ago who eventually became the great mom of my 1.5-year-old son and now proudly sitting among a vibrant cohort of youngsters born after 2000.

The torch of Guoshang has passed on from US millennials to you Generation Z. And even though you might face much higher housing prices in Beijing and Shanghai than us, I envy you for being born in the most exciting time China could offer in all history and reiterate the 2 simple yet actionable advices. I'd also repeat Niu Ge's encouragement: aim higher and be ambitious! The whole globe is your arena, Silicon Valley, London, rising African nations, countries on the belt and road, second tier cities in China, your battlefield is not just the Beiwai Campus, Haidian District not even jus the Beijing City.

The world is a tough place and Guoshang is a wonderful one, you are gonna love it! So, I wish you all great success in future and thank you very much!