Chinese entrepreneurs encourage students to take risks

Entrepreneurship was the theme of the evening at Monday night’s joint talk and networking event sponsored by the Zhen Fund and UBS China.

The event, held in Huntsman Hall, was hosted by the Chinese Students and Scholars Association at Penn (CSSAP) and featured speeches by Zhen Fund founders Xiaoping Xu and Victor Wang and UBS China Chairman and Country Head David Li.

The Zhen Fund invests in young entrepreneurs, providing anywhere from $100,000 to $300,000 to those who they deem to have potential for future success. The fund offers support for Chinese students, but also for anybody who wants to start a company in China.

“We encourage young students to start business where it’s most needed, where there’s the most opportunity,” Xu said.

Xu and Wang spoke in Chinese to a large crowd of graduate students about the important role entrepreneurship now plays in China’s economy and about some of their successful investments in the past, including the Stanford University graduate who created the largest online beauty retailer in China in a matter of two years.

Wang talked about his own entrepreneurial experience. He told the audience how he had to leave his job at Bell Communications, and how it took a year of hard contemplation for him to make that decision. The ultimate decision to leave his job and his life in the United States brought Wang back to China, where he is originally from.

The key theme of Xu and Wang’s speeches was the idea of making a choice. Many of the entrepreneurs highlighted in the talk, including Xu, gave up their comfortable lifestyles in order to become independent businessmen. But ultimately, they proved that the initial risk was worth it.

1992 Wharton graduate David Li, the third keynote speaker, is not directly involved with the Zhen Fund, but is friends with Xu and wanted to “repay back Wharton.”

“This is my school,” he added. Li supports the Zhen Fund and how it “broadens [students’] career paths.”

Hua Song Zhou, a second-year candidate for a Mechanical Engineering masters degree, was struck by the difficulty in making the choice to become an entrepreneur. “‘To be or not to be’ as Mr. Wang said. That really hit my soul.”

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