Inside and outside the window
Hao Jiang, general manager of YOU TOP, graduated in 1996
Hao Jiang was admitted to University of International Business and Economics from Ningbo in 1992. He was also the President of the student union when Commodity Inspection Department was absorbed into International Business School in 1994. After graduation in 1996, he worked in the research institute of Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation. In 1999, he joined Edelman Public Relations Worldwide. In 2007, he became the CEO of Shunya International Brand Consulting and then started his own business YOU TOP in 2011.
Hao Jiang in his school days
A great age outside and small stage inside the window
In 1992, Hao Jiang was admitted to University of International Business and Economics from Ningbo, Zhejiang province. In that year, the entry score of UIBE was very high, 16 top scorers from different provinces were finally admitted to UIBE. Hao Jiang, from a key middle school in Zhejiang Province, also got excellent scores. Moreover, he was also very outgoing and good at communicating with others. In the middle school, he served as a cadre of student union and became one of the only two student party members in Ningbo. Ningbo is a historic trading port, where jobs related to customs and commodity inspection are regarded as golden rice bowls. Therefore, he took commodity inspection as his first major choice.
In his college days, Hao Jiang had very outstanding performance. From the window provided by UIBE, he suddenly saw the light of market-oriented economy. The scenery inside the window, his college life was also very wonderful. He joined the student union of Customs Department, later the the student union of International Business School as soon as he entered college and then became the leader of student life department, President of the student union in 1994.
The work in student life department was not that easy. The food and price in school dining hall has always been the attention focus in most universities. Hao Jiang decided to lead the student life department to do something. They made suggestions to the canteen staff that students should provide their own help and work in the dining hall, which gained support. Therefore, the student life department started to organize students from different schools to help in the kitchen once a week and participated in raw material procurement, cooking, selling and cost accounting themselves. This activity promoted the communication between students and canteen staff. Students began to know the difficulty of canteen management, which cleared up the their misunderstanding of university’s logistics work.
Hao Jiang was elected as the President of the student union in his junior year. In this term, he carried out many big events. The Series of Distinguished Lectures was one of his most impressive work. He realized that, the society was changing rapidly with the development of Chinese economy, the rise of private economy and renewing negotiation in GATT. In order to attract the attention from UIBE students to these big events and deeply understand the international environment, he decided to invite men ahead of the times into the college to give lectures. They invited many entrepreneurs and government officials including Yongji Duan, chairman of Stone Group, Jueren Shen, Vice-minister of Economy and Commerce, Qingping li, Deputy Secretary-General of Straits Exchange Foundation. In this process, he was very determined and overcame many difficulties. The university authorities attached great importance to this activity. President Sun Weiyan and Deputy secretary Fang Maotian received guests in the office and personally delivered the opening speech. The Series of Distinguished Lectures evoke strong reactions among students.
The other thing Hao Jiang was proud of is that he participated in the National Assembly of the Student Federation, which was held in the Great Hall, as a representative of universities in Beijing in 1995 and met General Secretary Jiang Zemin and other central leaders. This honor was also a landmark in the history of UIBE. In his term as the president of student union, he also participated in the joint activities between five nearby universities in the "Oriental University City", from which he entered a higher platform of cross-university cooperation. He started to think about how to change the student management system and construct campus culture from the perspective of Beijing and the National Student Federation, from which he benefited a lot.
As a college student, he never forgot that his main task was study. He commented that the comprehensive training, especially English language and economy theories, has laid a solid foundation for UIBE students. He still remembered that his English teacher Jing Zhang asked them to summarize what they had done in daytime in English every day after lights out, allowing him to develop a good habit of thinking in English. The small garden in front of an old teaching building was the best place for students to practice English every morning. In addition to core subjects, he also benefited a lot from other courses like Chinese literature, History of western music culture.
Out to see and sail into the field of public relations
After graduation in 1996, Hao Jiang chose to work in the Institute of Ministry of Foreign Trade. He hoped to have a rational grasp the macroeconomic situations in China, such as the development trend of Chinese economy, industry and changes in demand for foreign talents under the time background and lay a more solid theoretical basis when he was young.
At that time, Hao Jiang was assigned to work in the World Trade Institute, focusing on researching the relevant policies of GATT negotiations. In the following year, he joined APEC’s largest research project in China, ‘Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development’. There were very sharp disputes on this issue, focusing on whether the developing countries should develop their economies at the expense of the environment, which provided practical guidance to policy formulation and implementation. And he was very lucky to attend this project and got the opportunity to explore the strategic issues with experts. He visited local enterprises and discussed with the environmental protection department and shared experience in Thailand. In October 1998, APEC member countries held a press conference in Beijing Jianguo Hotel, and Hao Jiang was designated as one of the project presenters to report their research results to delegates from different countries. He was under great pressure, for it had been the first time for him to give an English lectures in such an important international conference. He prepared a lot, like consulting the old comrades, interviewing officials and researching a large number of environmental policies to deepen the understanding of the project. Fortunately, his report ended up to be a great success.
Hao Jiang with Michael Dell, CEO of Dell, in 2000
The biggest harvest Hao Jiang got from the three years in World Trade Institute was that he could stand on a higher platform to participate in policy research and combine theory and practice. Moreover, he could also think in the perspective of how to formulate trade policies after joining WTO.
In a seminar "Foreign investment environment in China" organized by Ministry of Commerce in 1999, he had the opportunities to met the general manager of Edelman, a famous international PR firm as an organizer. The general manager invited him to join Edelman, because he had excellent English proficiency, solid economic theory basis and was also very familiar with the working process inside the government. Therefore, he entered the field of public relations accidentally, which finally determined the direction of his career.
In Edelman, Hao Jiang was responsible for setting up brands, making marketing and communicating plans in the Chinese market. He was quite familiar with these skills which he had contacted with in college life. All the costumers he served were world-class enterprises, such as HP, Procter & Gamble, NCR, etc.. Thus, he gradually accumulated his own ideas about brand, media and consumer buying behavior and also received a variety of international training opportunities.
One and a half years later, he joined Shunya Communications Group, which was a very powerful private enterprises as well as China’s top public relations company. The biggest attraction of Shunya Group lied in the vitality of private enterprises and the open platform. During the 9 years in Shunya Group, he witnessed the rapid development of the company. The number of employee grew from 40 to 500, and business volume from ten million to hundreds of millions of yuan. He also became the President of the group. At that time, he set up a business team and the operation system, made customer development plans and personnel training system, which effectively led to the rapid rise of the company's performance. Hao Jiang participated in from formulating to implementing strategies himself, which more liked setting up his own business compared with just being a professional manager. During this period, he also went to Canada to earn an MBA from University of Toronto
By the end of 2007, Shuanya Group and Omnicom Group established a joint venture and Jiang Hao served as the president. Omnicom was the world's largest communication group and the top 500 fortune, headquartered in New York. After tthat, the group entered the second leap in the development of enterprises. Jiang Hao made full use of Omnicom’s rich experience in managing international brand andintroduced the world's best case to the company, so that employees could understand the latest brand management theory and tools. In 2009, he was selected to attend the Omnicom-Harvard Business School senior management training class in Boston and became the only student from China. The training gathered a large number of top talents from many internationally outstanding communication companies. Hao Jiang found himself very popular among students, for they were all very interested in Chinese market. He was very proud of it and more determined to serve the Chinese market.
Set up his own business and head toward a bright future
With the rich management experience he accumulated during the 9 years in Shunya Group, he deeply grasp a full understanding of brand communication. However, he still felt suffering for he could not give full play to his potential as a professional manager.
Listening to his heart, Hao Jiang left Shunya Group and started his own business with friends in 2011, which became YOU TOP. At that time, he was 37 years old. He was grateful to Shunya Group for giving him the opportunity from a director to the president, from a private enterprise to joint venture. A company with 500 emplyees was quite impressive in the field of domestic professional service. He could still lead a wonderful life in Shunya Group, but once giving up all these things, he would face big challenges. Is it worth it? However, dream was more important and he needed to realize his life value. Over the past 10 years, he continued to move forward, working hard to both change and adapt to the environment. Now, it was time for him to fight in the real sea and make his own way. Meanwhile, he was also irrational and realized that with rapid development of the Chinese economy, the biggest challenge would be how to target consumer demand and effectively communicate with consumers, which was gaining more and more importance, in the era of media fragmentation
Hao Jiang believed that he was fully capable of creating a very good consulting company to realize his dream. By July 2011, the company had nearly 100 people. He hoped a good interaction with the staff and to develop a positive corporate culture, encouraging innovation and the pursuit of excellence. He also wished that his business could have a correct value to get recognition from the market. Don’t be too anxious to achieve quick success and get instant benefits.
Hao Jiang and his wife, Mai Ye, 2004 in America
Hao Jiang’s entrepreneurial ideas got strong support from his wife, Mai Ye. Thei romantic story started in UIBE. Ye was his next President of the student union, where they met, knew and loved each other. They still miss the days when they discussed and put up posters together. After Jiang’s graduation, they started serious relationship when Ye continued to pursue a master degree in UIBE. At that time, Jiang often went back to UIBE by bicycle to meet Ye. They got married in 2000 and Chunguang Ma, Ye’s mentor as well as the Dean of International Business School did the witness. Later, they were apart longer than together for Ye went to America for further education for 4 years. In 2007, Ye graduated from the Harvard Business School and went back to China. They settled in Beijing and finally led a stable life. And now, Ye serves as a senior manager in the Apple Corp.
They have two sons now. In order to be a good mother and support Jiang’s career development, Ye, graduated from Harvard, decided to leave financial companies with higher income and take more family responsibility. She felt happier this way.
