晚安 大家好 This is what I start speaking Mandarin, and I start speaking in English. It is an honor to be here and I want to thank CEO in the National Taiwan University for tonight. This is the first university that I have visited since I came to Taiwan and I am excited that you have beautiful campus, beautiful people judged by what I see and you actually beat the room next door McKinsey & Company. Actually I walk there to spy to see who is the next door and who is here and you make the right choice. It is an honor again to be here after arriving in Taiwan for about six to seven months. It’s been fun because the work and people with my work had made it fun. You will know a little bit more about whom I am and I want to talk about career because we are P&G ready to offer you a career not just a job. Jobs you can get many but careers you have to seek. I will tell you who I am and I want to go through a few things and of course how the dialogue where are you. The fun thing is I was in your shoes not too long ago, believe it or not, and I still remember. The fun thing for you is you will be one day speaking to your NTU grads the same way I am speaking to you and I see a lot of great people here and I sense energy and I think it will be a fun interchange. Please ask me questions and that is why I come here. I also hope you can get a lot.
Where do I come from?
I went to school in university of Tulane in New Orleans in the United States, and I was a biomedical engineer, and I went on to get my master in business. I think the best university is P&G where I have been through many leadership courses, direct marketing college; believe it or not, I am in row of general manager college next June.
We are at university for life, we never stop teaching and I never stop learning that is how we keep motivated.
Who is my family?
There are two girls in my life, one is my wife and one is my daughter. My wife was born in Spain, my daughter was born in Miami and my boy, one was born in Columbia and one was born in Cincinnati. So we have children born in three different places. We love to be together, to do sports, to go out to eat a lot delicious food in Taiwan and travel to a lot of places in Taiwan, so we keep them pretty well-entertained.
What is my career？
I started to work in P&G backing to 1990 when I graduated that summer and I started to work one month later and my first assignment was in the New Orleans manufacturing. One of the things I want to tell you is what motivated me a lot was when I went to the company and I saw a lot of young people. For me that was important because I think a place with youth and energy is basically necessary and must have a lot of new trends and people there want to be in the place to show who they are. P&G is the place where you can follow your dream and for me it is a career. For many it is a job to manufacturing coffee, for me is what you really want to do next. I asked to be moved to marketing. They asked, do you have the skills? Do you have the passion? I said sure I do, so I moved to the basic marketing dep. over the very big brand, Thai. After working at P&G for five years, someone may ask me why are you still with P&G and why not to take another better job? P&G is inclined to give authority and responsibility and provides enough budgets and resource to do things and most important they trust you. That is why I can grow and stay.
When you plan your career, it is important to think about the questions, where are you？ where do you want to go？ what is your vision？ what is your target？ what motivates you？ And what is your passion？
Q & A
Q1: What made you want to shift from biomedical engineering to business?
A1: When I was in high school, I thought biomedical engineering defines me. After two years in college, I don’t think it is what I really want. So I finish my college and then do one thing I really want to do. College is a way to teach you how to think, so don’t think about whether is the biomedical engineering, don’t think about whether is chemical engineering. Just place your emphasis on learning how to think, because once you leave college, you have got to learn everything anywhere.
Q2: Do you think it is very important for students to be internationalized such as to study overseas, travel all over the world or make friends from other countries or just use the internet?
A2: You are a smart guy, the book “the world is flag”, have you read that book; it is a really good book. In North America today, if I want to succeed with young consumers, I can no longer think only the local consumers, because it is the mix of whole world. So what we used to do is go to New York, Chicago, L.A., we met Spanish, Asians, Americans, and then African Americans. When you go to the culture you experience things you cannot experience on the internet. Why? Because we are human, we talk to each other. When I ask you a question and the question is about I want you to do this and you look at me and you put the face, you are telling me that I don’t think you are right but I will do it because you are the boss, see I can’t get the same reaction that you don’t really believe what I am saying, you don’t have any passion for it. If I didn’t see your reaction, I didn’t know the true feeling. But you also have to touch the culture, there is many way to do that and internet is just one of them. What I was trying to do always as I grew up is open-minded. When you are open-minded, you can really open to any culture you walk into.
Q3: Why do you want to be a general manager and what does it mean to you and what the things keep pushing you forward?
A3: When I was younger, I thought it was about stature. As I started to work, I understood they were not, because you get all the pressure, because you get all the headaches, because you get all the challenges. In P&G general manager are taking much responsibility. When I was young, I like to control a lot of things; again you need to understand yourself. I knew the general manager position was about people as well, and I knew I like to work with people. It is about being in the center to make a call. I also like marketing, and I love my marketing career that I could stay being a marketer forever. Right now, someone asks me and they are very shocked when I told them, they said what do you want to do next？ I said I think that my current job is my last job and they ask do you want to retire next step？ I have taken this attitude because it makes me to think about what my legacy will be to the Taiwan organization. This is common that you come, you do well and you move on, but what I think about is that this is my last step, what would people say when I leave and what will people see？ What motivates me is what my legacy. My personal legacy is my kids and my family and my work legacy is what will people in Taiwan five years from now at P&G and what things we have left allowed people to continue happy and continue to be winning this is what really motivates me.
Q4: what is the most important thing for P&G when evaluating people to hire he or not? What do you think Taiwanese people in career field most lack of? Is there any restriction for internship in P&G?
A4: People say we want leaders. We do want leaders. But what is a leader？We want to know what you do besides study, and that is how I look at you. How do you use your time? Have you ever been in community service project? Have you ever led a club in a university? Have you gone to speak to a group? Have you raised money for your school? Those tell me who you are beyond your grades. You guys are so bright, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. There are a lot of great people and we have many positions, so who actually fits the position will get the job. A leader for me is about winning and what is winning, the only thing I can tell you is that you must have passion. Basically we are looking for career match for long-tern success, so if you are looking for two-month internship project, I strongly suggest you to think it through. There is no qualification as long as you are strong, with leadership and you are active at school and pass all the tests, basically you will get the summer internship. You will come to our company to do real business project which will be reapplied at all other functions in the future. After the project you will most likely get the offer from P&G.. After you graduate, you can come as a full-time employee. This is the best way you can look at the company and the company can look at you. You are not just the intern but the marketing member in the marketing dep., and we will put someone to coach you. We will give you the project and the criteria how we evaluate you from the beginning, because we want you to succeed. This project is very helpful for you and for us.
Q5: What kind of things or what kind of skills do you think I should prepare？
A5: The most important thing for you to do is to understand what motivates you and what is your passion about and start to focus and penetrate those things. To find out what else can complete education background outside the university or in the university. And honestly, you can get a job in the summer as a summer intern. So explore it, you are young and there is no risk and it is motivating.
Q6: How do you handle the failure？
A6: Failure is the gift sometimes, because if you learn from that then you can become a far better person. If you take the failure as a negative thing, it doesn’t do anything, so if you fail; you will learn from that and become a better, stronger person. If you didn’t get the job, you may make a call to ask what happen？ What went wrong ？Why did you not get that job？ If you were not able to pass the test for the first time, you have to wait a period of time before you retest. We do not discourage people from trying or learning from something. If we do not take the risks, we will not go to win, so in your life, we encourage you to take the risks.
Q7: Could you please tell us more details about training and career developing system in P&G？In what situation will P&G send the employees to work in other countries？
A7: Training starts from the time you walk into the office. You have to learn the company history, you have to learn the subsidiary where you were in, and you have to learn the brand you actually do. If you sell, you have to learn how to sell the products. If you are coming to research, we will tell you about how we do consumer market research. It depends on what function which you come to. There is marketing university on line in P&G, you go to register and take the courses on line to learn from questions and cases. Because you have to keep up with what happens inside and outside the P&G. Training in P&G is very serious, we have training managers in the company. They are responsible to create the training programs for the organization. You can go anywhere you want, only has there to be a job available and you need to be available, there is the only two criteria.
Q8: How do you face the competition？
A8: It takes a lot of humility to compete. You have to learn humble and you can not to be arrogant. Arrogant competitors and arrogant people do not see their weakness and others strengths. I admire my competition and I know a lot of people in my position in competing companies. I go and find out what have they done？What did they do？How did they do it？What you have to do is respect your competition if you do not respect your competition, you will be dead. I believe competition is good, because if competition would not exist, then you would not have better products, you would not have better innovation, you would not have better price and you would not have more choices. So competition can keep everyone to be better, and in the end the winner in this industry will be the consumers.
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