China LGO Program: Getting to Know the Faces of Global Operations

 By Josh Jacobs

The China Leaders for Global Operations (CLGO) program was established at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2007 on the MIT LGO model, driven by a need to increase the numbers of rising Chinese managers available to LGO’s partner companies operating in China, and as a collaboration platform to enable LGO students and faculty to engage with the Chinese manufacturing environment. In January I made my first trip to Shanghai as part of the MIT review committee’s annual meeting with CLGO stakeholders. The discussions with students, alumni, faculty, company representative and SJTU leaders gave a rich context to my visit, helping me to get a sense of the underlying economic issues driving Shanghai’s explosive growth and the opportunities that LGO partners see in China.

The review committee, led by Prof. Tom Allen of the Sloan School and including other MIT faculty including Yasheng Huang, Georgia Perakis, and Dick Yue, found significant steps forward taking place for the China LGO program. Just a few weeks before, Business Week China had specifically cited CLGO and its connection to MIT as a key factor in the SJTU Antai business school’s success. Antai’s Dean, Lin ZHOU, is a former Princeton academic who has embraced CLGO as a strategic priority for his school, as part of SJTU’s overall emphasis on global engagement. In the hiring success of the CLGO Class of 2011, we saw the program succeeding in its mission of connecting Chinese talents with international manufacturing and operations concerns located in China. 

The committee met with some 2010 graduates of the program, one of whose stories really demonstrated for me the globalized nature of manufacturing in China. Wenli LE is working for a Brazilian-Belgian-American joint venture, Anheuser-Busch InBev, and is responsible for sourcing the supply chain for Budweiser beer production in China. As part of her challenge in brewing this iconic American brand, she said she works with suppliers ranging from national companies to smaller operations without email, and arranges shipments by truck, rail, and canal boat. Like many of her classmates, Wenli expressed a desire to work for Chinese companies in the future, particularly as they expand to global operations. But for now, she says that working for an international company’s operations in China is the best experience she can get to advance her career.

Wenli LE from CLGO Class 2007

After the conclusion of the formal review sessions, a special event was held to celebrate the launch of the CLGO alumni group. Featuring a keynote address by Yasheng Huang on the differences between entrepreneurship in China and India, this event also included a talk by Ryan Blanchette, LGO ’98, on the powerful influence of the LGO network in his life and career since leaving MIT. Ryan was in the final weeks of a multi-year assignment as manager of a TRW braking joint venture in Chonquing, and told the group that all seven of his jobs post-MIT had come from LGO and/or Sloan contacts. Referring to a “positive reinforcing loop” (inspired by his Systems Dynamics course at MIT), Ryan urged the alumni of the CLGO program to create their own network so that they could also benefit from the inflows of energy into their careers, relationships and lives that he and MIT LGO graduates enjoy. I am looking forward to seeing this sort of network develop among the CLGO students and graduates, and between the CLGO and MIT LGO communities, as the China LGO program continues to grow as an important contributor to LGO partners’ operations in China.

Group shot at SJTU
Left to Right: LU Jiasi, CLGO ’10; Prof. Jessie CHEN, CLGO Program Director; Ryan Blanchette, LGO ’98; Josh Jacobs, LGO Director of Operations and Partner Integration; Jeff Shao, LGO Finance Manager and CLGO Administrator; HUANG Chenbin, CLGO ‘10