How to lead in AMC China? Learn Chinese Asset Giant C-Level Finance Mandarin Case Study

"I was in Shanghai and experienced the lockdown...a life story to tell how I cope with all...

Hi, I'm Debbie Chen Finance Mandarin, BA. MA. CFA Candidate the Mandarin teacher for Finance Mandarin. I've been teaching fund managers for ten years. I'm deeply moved by one of my dear student's learning achievements. If you are also an asset manager and aim at polishing your Business Mandarin focusing on Finance, this may be a good map for you.

1. Background

The student Daniel (*alias) started his financial Mandarin learning since September 2021 via Finance Mandarin LIVE real-time. It has been over one year with 150 hours of 1-1 coaching, and we can see huge progress compared with the first-time coaching.

Daniel's parents are from Hong Kong, and he was born in Canada so English is his mother tongue. After over 20 years of work in Canada and Hong Kong, Daniel moved to Shanghai to develop the new market for the US asset giant as Chef Investment Office, Head of Investment, China, leading the investment teams including traders, analysts, and portfolio managers. In addition, Daniel also takes responsibility for investment operation, investment risk reports, company governance, and investment compliance. Daniel has worked in the US asset giant for over 15 years and his experience in asset management is over 25 years. Meanwhile, Daniel’s other main responsibility is to apply for the AMC license from CSRC and CBIRC for the US asset giant.?

When Daniel came to Shanghai, he was focusing on Asian investment development and led the global capital to China by Bond Connect, QFII, RQII, and other tools. The reason that the US asset giant set up a branch in Shanghai is that the US asset giant is optimistic about China’s market. And Daniel is confident in China and China’s development.

2. What the C-Level has Learnt

In order to work and collaborate with subordinates and regulators on Mainland, Daniel started the Finance Mandarin study, especially for investment committee meetings, town hall speeches, preparation for regulators’ reviews, and media interview.

Case 1: Finance Mandarin tailor-made a self-introduction for Daniel. In the introduction, greetings in a formal way, his experience in asset management, his role in the US asset giant, and his principal responsibility are included. It helps Daniel to give the opening speeches, no matter in a town hall or meetings with other leaders.

Case 2: Finance Mandarin and Daniel prepared for the US asset giant 2022 China Market Outlook Live Stream together. First of all, our top trainer edited all sentences with accurate, formal, and professional words and expressions, and then uploaded them on the learning platform with Pinyin and audio. After practicing with a trainer, Daniel was asked to practice 5 times per day with a timekeeper and recordings which can help him and the trainer find the weak point. The whole speech includes 5 parts: introduction of the US asset giant, how the US asset giant can provide services to investors in China, stock & fixed income team, multi-asset investment team, and talent cultivation.

Case 3: The main study is preparing for the regulator’s field inspection for license application. According to the different questions, the all contents about the US asset giant, regulations, and assessments are divided into 20 parts, which will be easier to practice and master. As the content becomes more expert, Finance Mandarin provides a trainer with more experience in the financial area who can provide more professional guidance. The answer covers Investment Committee Permission Range, profile manager KPI assessment, analyst assessment, authorization process, orders & performance management, dealing with insider information, process to adjust the security pool when security rating changes, and so on.

Case 4: In order to build a professional investment team, Daniel also needs to employ more local analysts, profile managers, and higher executives to run and operate the business. Finance Mandarin made a specific topic “60 Job Interview Questions” for him, in which he’ll be acknowledged with typical interview questions in Mainland China. And also Daniel could get ready for the possible answers from candidates

Case 5: After the business is gradually on track, Daniel prefers to prepare speeches for clients and partners, which is more focused on how the business is running and how investors could invest through the US asset giant. In this case, Finance Mandarin and Daniel started to focus on the Module for Trading Matters. This topic gives more focus on dealing with details.?How can a domestic team choose a suitable dealer or counterparty; Investment trading system risk control and fair trade control; Identification and control of abnormal transactions, etc??

3. How did we help him?

Finance Mandarin also helps Daniel to understand more about Mainland, including politics, government organization, the latest policies for foreign companies in China, etc. In the past year, we learned Key Points of the 19th CPC Central Committee 6th Plenary Session, the CEO of the US asset giant interprets ESG, CSRC Restrictions On Fund Managers Frequent Turnover, and so on.

In the topic “Key Points of 19th CPC Central Committee 6th Plenary Session”, we understand more about China’s politics and be clear with the leadership of the Communist Party, which makes communication smoother with regulators. And it’s a better understanding of the logic behind the behaviors of the government and will be able to find ways to deal with it.?

In the topic “CSRC Restrictions On Fund Managers Frequent Turnover”, the restriction on fund managers is clear and it will have a huge impact on the employment plan. A more understanding of restrictions can lead to more care in specifying company strategies and adapting to the overall environment.

The topic “CEO of the US asset giant interprets ESG” is set as a video from the US asset giant’s managing director. On one hand, listening to this video can practice listening skills with words in ESG category learning. On the other hand, the video could help Daniel to get used to China’s speech style which is slower and prefers idioms and slang usage which has a higher requirement for an understanding of China’s culture.?

To set the preparation for regulators’ review as an example, first, Daniel and our team of trainers categorize all the contents and get the answer ready for questions from regulators. And then, our trainer will help to edit the expression into a professional and formal format. At last, the pronunciation and expression will be corrected word by word, sentence by sentence. At the same time, Daniel also takes the pronunciation drills which is focusing on how to speak Mandarin correctly and how to use Pinyin to help to improve.

4. Suggestions for further improvement

The target for future learning is practicing special pronunciations in Mandarin, focusing on the front and rear nasals.

Preparing for speeches internal and external by accumulating more vocabulary to fit different circumstances; improving expressiveness in Mandarin by reading more news and articles from the financial industry and governments.?

On the aspect of pronunciation, our trainer will teach the method to pronounce in a proper correct way. With plentiful practice in the same category “front and rear nasals”, believe that Daniel will master soon. At the same time, the Finance Mandarin AI platform will be very helpful for Daniel for pronunciation practice. Daniel could use the function “voice input” to check whether he could speak the keywords and key points correctly. The platform also can help to analyze and summarise the problems in pronunciation and record them and send them to the trainer. It makes the further practice more targeted.

Focusing on vocabulary accumulation, there are situations. First, Daniel put more time into in-house training, speeches, and interviews which require professional and formal expression. These expressions can be learned and accumulated from internal materials, leaders’ speeches, and financial reports. The trainer will arrange 15-20 new keywords to learn each lesson to guarantee he can master the words' meaning and usage.

The second part is the daily conversation which is always replaced very fast by updated language. These expressions are depending on the latest information and popular culture which ask the student to keep following up with the trend. Reading governments report is one way to know the current government’s focus and social phenomena. Meanwhile, Finance Mandarin will help to prepare interesting topics to talk about daily life which will cover popular life.?

And last part is about how to form a proper sentence in a suitable situation in writing and speaking. Daniel is asked to prepare his own speech in Mandarin by giving keywords, which makes he can step out of his comfort zone and use the words he didn’t master more. The trainer can mark down the words he cannot use or is not familiar with on the platform. It allows him to practice after class.?

?Writer and Trainer: Debbie Chen Finance Mandarin, BA. MA. CFA Candidate Senior Mandarin Coach, BA, MA, HKUST?

Finance Mandarin 漢通金融學院

www.financemandarin.com?

+852 2895 1088 office

19/F, Two International Finance Centre, 8?Finance Street, Central, Hong Kong

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IPO. M&A. ESG. Alternative Investment?Finance Mandarin 1-1