I am a doctoral candidate at Harvard University. My research focuses on China’s emerging role in shaping urban development in Southeast Asia through financing, developing and building industrial parks and infrastructure – often as part of the Belt and Road Initiative. Before coming to grad school, I worked at the World Bank in D.C. for two years on land policy and urbanization strategies in China and other developing countries. I was part of the team that produced a flagship report titled Urban China: Toward Efficient, Inclusive and Sustainable Urbanization, which was presented to Chinese Premier Li Keqiang before the historic 3rd Plenum of the 18th Party Congress. It was extremely rewarding to see many of our recommendations being adopted as official policy, which would improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people. My experience at the World Bank opened my eyes to how well-designed policymaking can improve developmental outcomes and reaffirmed my passion for public policy and economic development. Prior to the World Bank, I went to Tufts University and majored in international relations and economics. In my freshmen year, I co-founded the Tufts chapter of GCC, and this year marks my 10-year anniversary at GCC.
Having served as a chapter co-founder/co-president and a central management director for three years, and then as a trustee and trustee chair for another six, I have had many memorable experiences in each role. But let me highlight two themes that I think will resonate with many of you: leadership and friendship.
Establishing a chapter from scratch, or anything for that matter, isn’t easy. It pushed me beyond my comfort zone and gave me the first taste of what leadership felt like. I had to be entrepreneurial, proactive, resourceful, creative, strategic and adaptive. In many ways, it’s like starting a company: I needed to identify customer pain points (the lack of China-focused neutral platform for meaningful engagement and dialogue on campus), estimate my addressable market size and demographic, and differentiate my products from my competitors’, recruit a high-performing team, organize interesting and meaningful events, and the list goes on.
After the initial startup phase, managing GCC and making it sustainable has been even more challenging. As I moved up GCC’s ranks, I went from primarily managing events and projects to primarily managing people. 80% of my job as trustee chair now is communications – making sure everyone is motivated and empowered to give her best. It sounds intuitive and simple, but it takes a lot of practice, discipline and even failure. The task is especially challenging given GCC’s global footprint and annual turnover of leaders. The other 20% of my job is thinking strategically about GCC’s longer-term directions and strategies – again not an easy task given rising US-China tensions and the underlying nationalism on both sides.
In all these years, there were events that became very stressful, and there were definitely moments that I became disillusioned about how and where GCC could go. But in the end, we persevered and we produced work that we could all be proud of. Through shared laughters and tears in countless late-night meetings, phone calls, and GCC events, I formed genuine friendships with many fellow GCCers. In fact, some of my best friends came from working on GCC together, and we still keep in touch to this day even as we are worlds apart.
GCC is the best leadership training camp any ambitious college student and young professional can have. The beauty of GCC is that it allows leaders to become comfortable and adept at making important decisions, taking calculated risks, resolving conflicts, and solving problems – all in a relatively low-stake environment. Anywhere in the world, rarely do twenty-somethings have the opportunity to manage and lead an organization of GCC’s size. The leadership skills that we acquire in GCC are highly transferable to any organization – private and public alike. Many GCC’s early leaders have founded successful companies in the US and China and they often credit GCC for developing their leadership skills (so much so that a few GCC alumni generously donate large sums to GCC).
For GCCers who are thinking about business schools, policy schools and other professional degrees, having significant leadership experience at GCC is a big plus in both admissions and your classroom experience. Speaking from my own experience taking leadership classes at Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School, I was able to enrich the class discussions with my GCC leadership experience. At the same time, I was also able to apply relevant leadership insights and best practices I learned in class to GCC – a true living laboratory. At the end of the day, leadership skills are best acquired by actually practicing them, and GCC is invaluable in that respect.
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