The joys and despair of the overseas management roadshow
"Looks like the market is having a brutal day today, all of your screens show red."
I rue the day I uttered that phrase. It was during an attempt at small talk with a Chinese institutional investor, whose office had a monitor showing the performance in the markets that day. Unbeknownst to me, in China, red is used to show gains and green is used to show losses. Yahoo Finance, and the West in general, is the opposite. What I expected to be a throwaway comment ended up revealing my lack of cross-cultural awareness.
(Don't believe me? Check out Baidu Finance's page covering the Dow versus Yahoo's page).
For nearly 10 years, I've been involved in some type of overseas roadshows. Back in 2008, I was a junior Associate at a private equity firm that had two types of overseas roadshows: visiting global LPs where our fund was being analyzed, and visiting international companies where we got to analyze them. Since 2014, my firm has often facilitated management teams going overseas who want to hire translators and interpreters.
Having committed my share of faux pas, here are a few things anyone embarking on these trips should keep in mind:
- Pamper yourself (or treat your client) on that first morning. One of the best experience I ever had was from a broker accompanying us on a Seoul roadshow. He booked us for a hot shave at the hotel on the first morning of the trip. It was a relatively minor expense in the scheme of business travel, and it was so much better than the typical "let's meet for breakfast and game plan".
- Have no shame in napping. While being driven between meetings, I noticed my boss would recharge by dozing off. It feels weird to catch zzz's in front of your boss, but once you do it once, you'll realize both of you are better off for this. And if you're being escorted around by a broker, taking a nap will relieve pressure from them to constantly feel they have to engage with you. Note: this only applies when there is jet lag involved. Shame definitely exists if you haven't travelled far from home!
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The full article, containing 5 more observations on overseas roadshows, can be seen here.