Label7 Portrait | Nancy, Director of Asia Pacific Region: The Strength of Women in a Time Warp

From Anqing to Shenzhen, from Hong Kong to Hangzhou, and later France, Bangladesh and India, in the night when she was miles away from home, Hua sometimes felt lonely, but she never backed down. To better communicate with others, she practised English, French, Cantonese and Hangzhounese over and over again; to better understand the skills of management, she took an MBA, a finance induction certificate and a human resources certificate ...... She hoped that she could choose for herself what kind of life she would have.

Two options

In 1998, in a small village in Anqing, Anhui Province, farmers returned home after a long day's work in the fields. The women are busy in the kitchen, smoke rises from the homes, and the sounds of children laughing and playing are heard in the air. In one family, the atmosphere was particularly relaxed and joyful - the youngest daughter, Hua, had just received a letter of acceptance to a prestigious university in her home province. At that time, China had not yet expanded its universities, and university entrance was hard-won. Not to mention how rare it was to get into a prestigious university in a small area where educational resources were scarce.

Before entering university, Hua had little opportunity to get in touch with the outside world. It was a hazy picture of the future, and Hua had no clear idea in her mind. But what she was very sure of was that she did not want to end her studies early, like the other girls in the village, and then get married and have children. Hua had a stern father and a gracious mother. The parents were very different, but they expressed a surprising unanimity on one thing: as long as Hua wanted to study, they would keep her in school.

"With this simple thought in mind, Hua chose to spend the first ten years of her life studying hard with all her energy. Getting into a prestigious university was the first gift that fate gave to Hua.

In the 1990s, when computers were becoming popular, Hua's father chose a computer science course for the young Hua. Her father didn't know much about higher education, but he thought it sounded good to study a specialized technology, and it was so popular. So the little girl, Hua, left her village and Anqing to study computer science in the provincial capital of Hefei.

With the high level of self-discipline that she had developed along the way, Hua's studies and life at university were on track in an orderly manner. On her first visit to a big city, Hua felt as if something was awakening deep inside her. Compared to the simplicity and conservatism of his hometown, Hefei was worthy of the title of "the first county of Jianghuai and the capital of Wu Chong", and it opened up a new world to Hua: it was so big out there, with so many buildings, so many people and so many commodities.

Cottages in front of Hefei City Hall Square being demolished in 1999

Hua met foreigners for the first time at the university. Some were teachers and students from the University, others were friends from foreign countries visiting the University, which made her realise that there was a bigger world outside of Hefei. Hua was very much a part of a fearless nature and an interest in new things. With her poor English, she always pays attention when she meets foreigners and occasionally feels happy when she can exchange a few words and learn something new.

She was more interesting in foreign language learning. After some time, Hua made a bold decision to change her major to a foreign language department. After a series of preparations and applications, Hua officially became an English major student. Looking back on this choice some years later, Hua realises that it was an important point that changed the course of her destiny.

Mutiple Locations

In 2002, Hua was about to graduate from university. Facing the future, Hua had a lot of thoughts. Did a job as a translator in the Foreign Office seem good? Or maybe a job as an English teacher as a civil servant? While similar options could certainly lead to a stable and decent life, Hua hesitated and decided that none of these seemed to be what she wanted to pursue.

In 1999, a national conference on local institutional reform decided to streamline the number of government departments in cities, counties and townships by no less than 2.8 million, a move that gave a direct impetus to the process of "leaving a secure job for something better but more risky". Hua was keenly aware of the booming market economy behind the trend. When it came time to make a final decision on where to go after graduation, she made up her mind: "I should go with the flow".

In the summer of 2002, Hua joined a foreign company in Shenzhen, working in the import and export department of a foreign trade company. In this foreign enterprise with more than 10,000 employees, everyone usually goes by their English names. At first, when she heard someone call her Nancy, she was still not sure how to react.

Hua is responsible for logistics matters in the department, which has a good atmosphere and good leaders. She is down-to-earth, has a strong sense of action and demonstrates an ability that is rare among freshers. The respect of her colleagues and the importance of the leaders followed, and Hua really felt the meaning of her work: "It feels so good to be respected and valued".

A year after joining the company in Shenzhen, Hua felt a sense of confusion inside. In the eyes of outsiders, she was handling her job with ease. The benefits were good, the pay was good, and friends and family always spoke highly of Hua. "It's too easy, it's not challenging," she thought. Amidst the lamentations and disbelief of the people, Hua jumped ship.

The new company was still a foreign company, a Japanese-Italian joint venture, specialising in leather sofas. But it was small, with an incomplete structure and unclear job divisions, and the volume was not comparable to that of the previous company. But there was a hidden joy in Hua's heart - it was exactly what she wanted.

At this Japanese-Italian joint venture, Hua is the assistant to the general manager. Because the company is small, she can communicate directly with her boss or colleagues in other departments at any time, and a good idea may be immediately supported and taken forward within a day. When other departments were busy, Hua was always enthusiastic to give a hand with some trivial matters. She gradually learned how the various departments functioned at this small foreign company: HR, business, production...... Her boundless energy was astonishing. Here, Hua found herself adept at internal and external resource integration and co-ordination, which she was able to do with ease.

Hua, who works for a Japanese-Italian joint venture

Just as the leadership was becoming more and more important to Hua, a change occurred in the company: for cost reasons, the shareholders decided to relocate the company from Shenzhen to Huizhou, a small city in Guangzhou province. Huizhou is not comparable to Shenzhen in terms of resources or future development space. The reality for Hua was that if she wanted to stay with the company, she had to move to Huizhou with it.

Hua reviewed her experiences along the way and decided to give up on the company. "If I have to go to Huizhou, why don't I go back to Hefei?" The long pain was better than the short pain, and Hua decided to quit.

? The urban landscape of Shenzhen in 2004

After some contact with a headhunter, Hua was successful in taking up a job with a large garment company in Hong Kong. The core department of the company is based in Hong Kong and the manufacturing department is based in Dongguan. As the only mainland Chinese in the department, Hua moved between Dongguan and Hong Kong to ensure that the project was carried out in an orderly manner.

Hua is not a sentimental person, and the effort required to travel from Anhui to Hong Kong does not allow her to think too much. However, there were always small moments that made her feel a little lonely and uncertain. At that time, Dongguan was not a safe and secure city, and there were a lot of urban villages in various districts, there was a very odd mix of people. On one occasion, Hua had just been paid and bought a new mobile phone as a treat for herself. The man on the motorbike, wearing a mask, took the phone away from her as he passed by. The force of the snatch almost made Hua fall to the ground, and the shock was followed by a feeling of loneliness. That night, Hua lay in bed, thinking of his parents and sister back home, and of her friends at university who had mostly stayed in Hefei, and she was particularly aware of the feeling of being adrift in a different place.

2005, Hong Kong Disneyland Opening Ceremony

Join in Label7

In 2005, the father of one of Hua's friends passed away suddenly. "He had just made fish soup the day before and was waiting for me to come home to drink it", her friend's haggard face and gloomy tone made?Hua's heart tremble.

The fear of not being able to provide for one's parents when one's body is not as strong as it was when one was younger was born. In order to take better care of her parents in her hometown of Anhui, she began to look at job opportunities in the Yangtze River Delta region.

In 2006, during a job market recruitment in Hangzhou, Hua noticed a foreigner called Kula, who was a professional manager of a French company. The French company was expanding internationally and planned to set up a branch of the company in Hangzhou. Kula was recruiting team members for this branch.

"We are the French company Label7, founded in 1997. Do you know the label and packaging industry? There is as big a market for the textile and clothing industry as there is for the label and packaging industry. David, the owner, is a great visionary. Do you want to join us? Let's see how much play there is in labelling and packaging", said Kula, after learning about Hua's rich experience of working in foreign companies.

After returning to the hotel from the job market, Hua carefully considered the possibility of joining Label7. She reviewed her experience working for the clothing company - and found a number of details that corroborated the prospects Kula described.

"Besides, this company has a lot of seniority, having even taken a partnership with Hermes in its home base in France. Now they are building a platform from 0 to 1 in Hangzhou, a rare opportunity". Hua decided squarely that she must seize this opportunity. When Kula called Hua for the second interview, Hua, who had carefully prepared for the backgrounder and interview, successfully passed the remote interview from the French headquarters. David, the chairman of the board on the other end of the phone, was so pleased with Hua that he immediately hired her as the business manager of the Hangzhou branch, where she will be responsible for negotiating business projects and following up on business orders.

Localising a foreign company is not an easy task and when the team structure was not yet fully completed, Kula, as a foreigner unfamiliar with the Chinese market, was often overwhelmed and had to seek help from Chinese colleagues such as Hua. From choosing the location of the company to finding people to fit it out, Hua was often on the road to assist Kula with various matters.

"The Hangzhou branch of Label7 was located on No. 1 Street, which has since moved several times and still has the most special meaning".

Hua at West Lake, Hangzhou

Path to Promotion

After a few months of steady work, Hua became fully familiar with Label7's culture and systems and gained a relatively comprehensive understanding of the company's overall business. Despite the difficulties encountered, the business of the Hangzhou office has continued to meet the expectations of the French headquarters under Hua's leadership. The French head office was further impressed by Hua's outstanding abilities and she was put on the watch list of the top management as a promising candidate.

In 2007, after the China division had been set up, the role of France in the product lifecycle was gradually focused on being the home base for product design by designers, and production lines such as raw material processing and semi-finished product processing were moved more to China. In the same year, Aurélie, the successor of the Label7 Group, was sent to China as General Manager of the Hangzhou branch in China.

At the time, the number of scrapped print heads on the machines producing care label was in the hundreds every year, with a wastage cost of millions of dollars, which drew Aurélie's attention. Hangzhou, China, being the production centre, firstly re-routed the electrical wiring and later on carried out a series of measures such as anti-static rectification one after another. However, none of these achieved any significant improvement.

Finally, on the advice of the technical support staff of the care label equipment and machine supplier, the company started with human maintenance and instructed the relevant staff in the production hall that they needed to carefully check the print head for dirt before work and to clean the print in strict accordance with scientific steps. For example, when cleaning the print head, the power to the wash-mark printer must first be switched off. Unfortunately, there was still little success.

Hua suggested to Aurélie that, based on the care label head scrap rate for the current production volume, a significant incentive would be paid to the front-line production staff and their respective supervisors if a certain number of miles could be added to each washer-mark before it was scrapped. This has had a surprisingly positive effect, with Label7's annual wash-mark head scrap rate plummeting from hundreds to dozens, achieving an industry-unusual level of efficiency in equipment maintenance and winning hearts and minds.

When Aurélie reported back to the French head office, he did not hesitate to praise Hua's work. As a reward for her excellent performance in the company, David, the founder and then Chairman of the Board, offered her a visit to the headquarters in Paris, France.

"I was really surprised", said Hua, who did not expect to be personally invited by the Chairman's family, "not to mention the fact that Paris is such a romantic and beautiful city".

Hua at Label7 headquarters in France

After visiting the French headquarters, David and his family enthusiastically took Hua around Paris and its surroundings. At Disneyland Paris, the only Disneyland in Europe, Hua had one of her most impressive experiences of the trip.

Like the other Disneylands, Disneyland Paris is dominated by scenes such as the Western Town, the Grand Canyon and the Pirate Ship. And in order to blend in with the local society and culture, Disneyland Paris is designed to be extraordinarily refined and elegant, whether in the design of the castle, the streets, the carvings of the buildings, or even the shape of the trees and flower gardens, which have the feel of a classical European court garden. Hua was aroused to a long-lost childlike spirit at Disney, going from one project to another as she tirelessly experienced it. David's family saw how much fun Hua was having and were very happy to accompany her as she explored the vast park.

"I was really too young at the time and got too involved in the fun to notice my surroundings", Hua was very chagrined. David had a minor accident earlier in life and his legs and feet were not conducive to a lot of exercise. But out of respect for Hua and the respect that French men have for women, David accompanied Hua around the park with his family without saying a word.

It was only when David's wife noticed her husband's strain and apologised to the group for wanting to take a break that Hua was touched and ashamed to realise that he had been having too much fun and had neglected the physical condition of the others.

It was not only the respect and respect that was shown to Hua, but also the warmth and touch of the details that made Hua feel like she was with his family.

Aurélie's trust and recommendation and David's family's hospitality during the trip to France were very touching to Hua. She is already a very responsible person and when she is engaged in a job, she only has eyes for that job. Hua became more committed to her job and to the company.

The Hangzhou branch flourished, first from a 500 sq ft office on No. 1 Street to a 1500 sq ft office on No. 22 Street. A few years later, when the Hangzhou office moved again to a 3,000 sq ft office space on No. 16 Street, Hua was promoted to CEO of Label Group China Hangzhou.

? Label7 Group Hangzhou Branch Business Affairs Meeting

Director of Asia Pacific Region

In 2018, with the rise of India and Bangladesh in the textile market, and in order to further provide customers with globally uniform qualified product and service, Aurélie, the Group's Chairman, decided to start deploying fully Group-owned branches in Bangladesh and India, in addition to the branches in Hangzhou, China, and Hong Kong, China.

The preparation of the Bangladesh branch began firstly.

Bangladesh was a slow and inefficient country, and the early stages of the branch's development encountered unprecedented difficulties, as it was never able to keep up with expectations.

The Label7 Group decided to send a team of senior professionals to Bangladesh to oversee the project. However, due to Bangladesh's dense population and economic backwardness, security was a problem, with robberies, kidnappings and other crimes occurring from time to time. In particular, the terrorist attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery - an attack on expatriates - took place just a year ago. Although the attack was not successful, the fear of travelling to Bangladesh was a cause for concern.

Hua decided to step forward and join the team overseeing the Bangladesh project. This was met with disbelief by his family, "Can't you just stay China?". Convincing the family was difficult and Hua kept reassuring her husband and children, explaining to them that she would only stay at the hotel and the office, that there was security at both locations and that she would take as many male colleagues as possible on the road. After convincing her husband and children and asking them to keep this secret except their parents , Hua set off.

Upon arrival in Bangladesh, Hua immediately refines the project development schedule, draws up objectives and work plans for each department in the Bangladesh branch, and participates in the vetting of new employees who come in for employment. Through the remote guidance of Aurelie, the Chairman of the Board, and with Hua and others organising and coordinating on the ground, the preparations for the Bangladesh office were finally on the right track.

The Bangladesh team was impressed by Hua's efficiency and insight. The small, soft-faced, feminine Chinese woman has won their respect from the bottom of their hearts.

One year later, the Label7 Group began the process of setting up its Indian subsidiary. Given Hua's experience in building up the Bangladesh office, Hua is still involved in assisting with the building of the Indian office.

Hua in India

In 2019, following the completion of the construction of the Labe7 Group's India office, the Group's shareholders voted to award Hua the position of Regional Director for Asia Pacific of the Label7 Group, who will be responsible for the day-to-day management of the four divisions in India, Bangladesh, Hong Kong and Hangzhou and will report directly to the Chairman, Aurélie, on the Group's Asia Pacific affairs.?

Hua and Aurélie

Behind the Glamour

Hua's life is not as smooth as it may seem to outsiders, and underneath the glamorous exterior are countless hours of silence.

In 2008, in order to supplement and organize the systematic knowledge system of business and management, Hua took up advanced mathematics, which she had not touched for many years, and resolutely took the MBA. From Monday to Friday, Hua works hard at the company to deal with business matters. On weekends, Hua took up pen and paper, and hardly took a break to brush up on her knowledge and memorise her books.

She stayed up countless nights, worked every day with her eyes open, and then started reading and working again when she got home. This life did not come to an end when Hua received her MBA. In Hua's family, no one could tell her how to be a qualified business executive, she had to rely on herself. After her MBA, Hua studied systematically about finance, management psychology, and even got her accountant's qualification and human resources certificate ......

The year she graduated from her MBA, Hua and her husband welcomed their baby, a new life in the family. Friends and family congratulated Hua on the triple harvest of career, family and studies. But only Hua herself knew how much work it took to complete her thesis while pregnant. She even remembers the hardships of her distant secondary school days, reading by light in the winter nights.

Hua graduated from MBA

A woman's ambition is also motivated by love. "Women naturally have a more sensitive perception of love, and when this love becomes their inner motivation, they can do anything".

Hua loved her family and she had two things that comforted her from the bottom of her heart. One is that as her son grows older, she can not only provide him with quality educational resources, but also support his hobbies without any worries, whether it is piano or programming, and she has always encouraged her son to try more possibilities. Secondly, the year her mother became seriously ill, she was able to work with doctors to study the latest developments in foreign cases and had the financial means to provide her mother with targeted drugs or medical treatments when she happened upon them that worked well.

In talking about the philosophy of life, the famous scholar Zhuoyun XU said, "People cannot find a purpose, they cannot find where the meaning of life is, and so they cannot adapt". Hua is fortunate to have no such worries. She is grateful for her current life, "Since I am fortunate enough to be in this position, not only am I fighting for the vision of a 100-year enterprise, I hope to promote the development of the whole industry of labelling and packaging, and inject my share of strength into the development of society".

Life is infinite

Nancy/Yan Aihua

Hua, i.e. Nancy/Yan Aihua

Currently Regional Director, Asia Pacific, Label7 Group, France