Andrew Yang on growth
“My team is fairly young, but each one of them has very strong motivation and passion. They all want to learn and they want to succeed, and they’ve all got great futures with TNT.”
“Adapt and prosper”
Lucky. That’s a word you’re bound to hear a lot of if you spend any time at all with Andrew Yang, a man who personifies the best of China’s long tradition of strong work ethic and respectfulness and Western-style enthusiasm and drive to get ahead. It’s how he describes some of the personal and career opportunities he’s had. It’s how he describes his countrymen, especially students and young workers. And it’s how he sees himself.
As Yang tells it, one of his first lucky breaks came early in his career when he worked for a large state-owned company: He got the opportunity to attend a foreign language institute. “I knew China would become part of world society sooner or later, and I wanted to build my language skills so I could eventually deal with foreign companies,” he says. After a year of intensive English training, Yang was transferred to the import/export division where he sourced products from abroad, spending a lot of time interacting with suppliers outside China. “It was my first introduction to other cultures.”
In 1996 Yang got another break. When his wife was awarded a scholarship to study for her Ph.D., they got the opportunity to move to Australia. It was a real test, not only of the couple’s English skills, but of their adaptability and determination. Despite understanding the language, they found being immersed in a foreign culture a bit like jumping into a cold swimming pool. “It was a shock. For the first weeks, we wondered if we could make it,” he recalls. At that sink-or-swim moment, Yang decided to swim. “I told myself I would not restrict myself to living and working among Chinese people,” he says. “When you go abroad, you have to get involved in society.”
After a month in the country, Yang landed a job as marketing specialist with an Australian company. He also earned two advanced degrees during his stay—a master’s in marketing and an M.B.A in finance. His experience in marketing led him toward the logistics field, and when he returned to China in 2001, he took a job as logistics manager for Emery. He ascended through a series of account management, marketing and project management roles there, and in 2003became the company’s general manager for North China.
When the opportunity to join TNT came two years later, Yang didn’t rely on luck, but on his strong business sense. He recognised that TNT has a solid position for growth in China and he liked its customer-centric philosophy. “TNT genuinely cares about our customers and understanding their needs.” Yang also liked TNT’s clear focus on doing what it’s good at. “I’ve always known that bigger is not necessarily better,” he says. “At TNT we put our resources into those things we know we’re good at. We aim to be number one in the China-to-Europe segment, and we aim to create the number one domestic network in China.”
Yang believes TNT has everything it needs to achieve those objectives. “Our strategy is right and we have the right infrastructure. The tangible is in place,” he says. “But to achieve our strategy we also need people—and TNT has great people here in China. They’re hard-working and they’re eager to do well for themselves and for TNT. I always tell my employees that Chinese people are lucky. We’re lucky because we live in a country that has had more than 10% annual GDP growth for the last 10 years. We’re lucky because we’re part of a company committed to success here in China.”