BEIJING, January 16, 2010 – The Cheung Kong MBA Mentorship Program kicked off today at the school's Beijing campus. Twenty-one new mentors, drawn from the ranks of the Cheung Kong Executive MBA and China CEO Programs, met the 56 current MBA students in a ceremony based on the traditional Chinese rite for starting an apprenticeship.

The Cheung Kong MBA Mentorship Program is aimed at providing MBA students with an in-depth understanding of Chinese business and its unique paths to success, taking advantage of the talents and resources among the over three thousand alumni of Cheung Kong GSB's EMBA and CEO programs. The inaugural group of mentors includes leaders with rich practical business experience and capital operations in many core industries, including finance, investment, media, real estate, and e-commerce.

With the unstinting support of Cheung Kong leaders, the MBA Mentor team was formed from the highest level of Chinese business leaders. The mentors include former Microsoft China General Manager and "woman of legend" Juliet Wu, who ascended in the ranks of management at multinational corporations from the very bottom to the very top; President of Guangdong Investoday He Boquan, who transformed himself from an entrepreneur behind China's highly-successful "Robust" soft-drink brand into a backstage venture capitalist; Ji Qi, CEO of the hotel chain Hanting Inns, who previously guided two other companies – travel agency CTrip and hotel chain Home Inns – from their initial founding to a successful IPO on NASDAQ; and Chen Yihong, President of the China Dongxiang Group, who received investment from Morgan Stanley to acquire the rights in China to Italy's Kappa brand, went public in Hong Kong, and is now expanding his brand through further mergers, acquisitions, and operational consolidation overseas.

Former CEO of Focus Media Tan Zhi, Vice President of China CITIC Bank Cao Tong, Shanshan Investment Holdings Chairman Zheng Yonggang, Huawei Vice President Han Shengping, and A8 Music Chairman Liu Xiaosong were also among the mentors attending the ceremony.

There may no one easily-replicable shortcut to success, but the lifelong experience and knowledge of the assembled mentors can nevertheless prove an invaluable boon to this year's MBA class, several students said.

In the coming year, the mentors and their "apprentices" will come together for discussions on a range of topics, company visits, case analyses, reading groups, and outdoor activities, to enable free-ranging conversation on a variety of topics. Mentors can also invite the students to take part in studies and debates on actual challenges faced by their companies. Under the guidance of the mentors, the MBA class will have the chance to gain greater exposure to various industries and companies, analyze different Chinese business models, and get advice on career development and personal growth.

At the ceremony, Cheung Kong Associate Dean Teng Bingsheng recalled the saying by Daoist sage Laozi that "if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; if you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime." Likewise, said Teng, he hoped that the MBA students would take initiative in asking their mentors to teach them and pass on various skills. The focus, he said, should not be on developing a network of professional contacts, but rather on honing one's understanding of the underlying reasons behind personal and professional success. On behalf of the mentors, Shanshan Chairman Zheng Yonggang encouraged the students to be proactive in making contact with him and his fellow business leaders, and expressed his belief that both sides could learn from the other.

After the ceremony ended, the students and mentors had the opportunity to interact and converse more freely, during which time the curiosity and warmth of both groups became apparent. Richard Li (MBA '09 intake), who had done some work on the Chinese garment industry previously, seized the chance to discuss Chinese companies' overseas acquisitions with Dongxiang head Chen Yihong. "It was really exciting, and we agreed to meet again at the Cheung Kong Sanya Forum to talk some more," he said.

MBA student Patrick Ma ('09 intake), who formerly worked at a Fortune 500 multinational, said, "I used to be mainly concerned with sales, and feel more familiar with things like marketing and pricing. Hopefully, with the help of the mentorship program, I'll be able to gain a better understanding of a company as a whole, and come to grasp the entire value chain and how it operates. That'll let me put my knowledge from class into practice."

The creation of the MBA Mentorship Program was made possible by the Cheung Kong MBA Program's move from the Shanghai to the Beijing campus, finalized in November 2009. The move not only gave the MBA program and its students greater access to the resources available in Beijing, but also facilitated the interaction between MBA students and their counterparts in Cheung Kong GSB's other programs, as with the Mentorship Program. According to MBA Program staff, the program plans to create additional opportunities for interaction and partnership between MBA students and other parts of the school in the coming years based on the foundation established by the Mentorship Program, to further strengthen the ties between members of the "Cheung Kong Family."

BEIJING, January 16, 2010 – The Cheung Kong MBA Mentorship Program kicked off today at the school's Beijing campus. Twenty-one new mentors, drawn from the ranks of the Cheung Kong Executive MBA and China CEO Programs, met the 56 current MBA students in a ceremony based on the traditional Chinese rite for starting an apprenticeship.

The Cheung Kong MBA Mentorship Program is aimed at providing MBA students with an in-depth understanding of Chinese business and its unique paths to success, taking advantage of the talents and resources among the over three thousand alumni of Cheung Kong GSB's EMBA and CEO programs. The inaugural group of mentors includes leaders with rich practical business experience and capital operations in many core industries, including finance, investment, media, real estate, and e-commerce.

With the unstinting support of Cheung Kong leaders, the MBA Mentor team was formed from the highest level of Chinese business leaders. The mentors include former Microsoft China General Manager and "woman of legend" Juliet Wu, who ascended in the ranks of management at multinational corporations from the very bottom to the very top; President of Guangdong Investoday He Boquan, who transformed himself from an entrepreneur behind China's highly-successful "Robust" soft-drink brand into a backstage venture capitalist; Ji Qi, CEO of the hotel chain Hanting Inns, who previously guided two other companies – travel agency CTrip and hotel chain Home Inns – from their initial founding to a successful IPO on NASDAQ; and Chen Yihong, President of the China Dongxiang Group, who received investment from Morgan Stanley to acquire the rights in China to Italy's Kappa brand, went public in Hong Kong, and is now expanding his brand through further mergers, acquisitions, and operational consolidation overseas.

Former CEO of Focus Media Tan Zhi, Vice President of China CITIC Bank Cao Tong, Shanshan Investment Holdings Chairman Zheng Yonggang, Huawei Vice President Han Shengping, and A8 Music Chairman Liu Xiaosong were also among the mentors attending the ceremony.

There may no one easily-replicable shortcut to success, but the lifelong experience and knowledge of the assembled mentors can nevertheless prove an invaluable boon to this year's MBA class, several students said.

In the coming year, the mentors and their "apprentices" will come together for discussions on a range of topics, company visits, case analyses, reading groups, and outdoor activities, to enable free-ranging conversation on a variety of topics. Mentors can also invite the students to take part in studies and debates on actual challenges faced by their companies. Under the guidance of the mentors, the MBA class will have the chance to gain greater exposure to various industries and companies, analyze different Chinese business models, and get advice on career development and personal growth.

At the ceremony, Cheung Kong Associate Dean Teng Bingsheng recalled the saying by Daoist sage Laozi that "if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; if you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime." Likewise, said Teng, he hoped that the MBA students would take initiative in asking their mentors to teach them and pass on various skills. The focus, he said, should not be on developing a network of professional contacts, but rather on honing one's understanding of the underlying reasons behind personal and professional success. On behalf of the mentors, Shanshan Chairman Zheng Yonggang encouraged the students to be proactive in making contact with him and his fellow business leaders, and expressed his belief that both sides could learn from the other.

After the ceremony ended, the students and mentors had the opportunity to interact and converse more freely, during which time the curiosity and warmth of both groups became apparent. Richard Li (MBA '09 intake), who had done some work on the Chinese garment industry previously, seized the chance to discuss Chinese companies' overseas acquisitions with Dongxiang head Chen Yihong. "It was really exciting, and we agreed to meet again at the Cheung Kong Sanya Forum to talk some more," he said.

MBA student Patrick Ma ('09 intake), who formerly worked at a Fortune 500 multinational, said, "I used to be mainly concerned with sales, and feel more familiar with things like marketing and pricing. Hopefully, with the help of the mentorship program, I'll be able to gain a better understanding of a company as a whole, and come to grasp the entire value chain and how it operates. That'll let me put my knowledge from class into practice."

The creation of the MBA Mentorship Program was made possible by the Cheung Kong MBA Program's move from the Shanghai to the Beijing campus, finalized in November 2009. The move not only gave the MBA program and its students greater access to the resources available in Beijing, but also facilitated the interaction between MBA students and their counterparts in Cheung Kong GSB's other programs, as with the Mentorship Program. According to MBA Program staff, the program plans to create additional opportunities for interaction and partnership between MBA students and other parts of the school in the coming years based on the foundation established by the Mentorship Program, to further strengthen the ties between members of the "Cheung Kong Family."