East Meets West: How a Savvy Chinese Business Woman Uses Her Western Education To Build Her Empire

Posted on Nov 16, 2011 in Grad Schools | 0 comments

By Shunee Yee, CEO and President, CSOFT International

Shunee Yee

I come from a very traditional Chinese family. Both of my parents are scholars by profession, so throughout my childhood, I was always surrounded by various scholarly groups and individuals in prestigious academic positions. And yet, in spite of this, I’ve gone about business a lot differently than what my upbringing might suggest.

I believe a solid academic foundation is very helpful in getting started with your career. If you have a degree from a well-respected university, this will absolutely give you a competitive advantage in most organizations. But I’ve found that after you’re in, you’ll need more than a theory-based education to successfully navigate a wide spectrum of professional situations. Essentially, you need experience.

Having pursued higher education can be your ticket into a company, but the game remains the same once you’re inside. Your degree won’t be a deciding factor in promotions or the respect your colleagues have for you. Your individual abilities, strength of character, and determination will have a far greater impact on business success than merely having an impressive educational background.

To be fair, these same qualities that directly influence your professional success may not have developed as fully or sufficiently without the influence and nurturing of academia. In a nutshell, academia teaches you how to ask more focused questions, but experience will give you the answers.

When I attended Harvard Business School’s Senior Executive education program this past summer, I learned a number of valuable things, but one of the main reasons I was able to absorb as much as I did was because I have relevant experience that enabled me to more easily digest what was being taught and discussed. Because of this, I truly believe that a few years of experience in between undergraduate studies and returning back to school for a graduate degree is both beneficial and valuable.

In the United States, people are turning to graduate school due to the downturn economy. For example, the New York Times recently reported that the number of people taking the GREs rose 13 percent in 2009, and the LSATs rose 20 percent in 2010. People are looking for ways to launch a new career or gain a competitive edge, whereas five years ago, these same people may not have given graduate work much thought.

In China, we have a much larger population, so the situation is quite different. A graduate degree does not give you a competitive edge because often times, the person you’re competing against already has one. An advanced degree is a must to effectively distinguish yourself from the hundreds of thousands of candidates out there.

Good opportunities are not obvious, nor are they easy to seize, especially compared with ten years ago. Regardless of the situation, once you commit to graduate school, it is essential to commit to longevity. You need to truly digest your environment and all it entails, getting the most out of your education while keeping the big picture in focus. Otherwise, why are you there in the first place?

About Shunee Yee – CEO and President

Yee founded CSOFT in 2003 with the goal of establishing the company as the world’s leading globalization firm, with the strategic delivery of cost-effective solutions for large enterprises. Under her leadership, CSOFT has grown from a Beijing-based office to a global corporation with offices in key hubs around the world. Yee’s more than 15 years experience in the localization industry includes pioneering Lionbridge Technologies’ technical development services in China as Vice President for Asia Market Development. Earlier, Yee helped build China operations for International Communications as Vice President & General Manager for Asia Pacific operations at the company. Yee is the 2009 winner of the prestigious international Stevie Award for Best Asian Entrepreneur for Women in Business. She successfully completed a senior executive education program at Harvard Business School, and holds a Bachelor of Arts from Nanjing Normal University in Nanjing, and a Master’s degree from Rhode Island College.

About CSOFT

CSOFT International is an award-winning provider of multilingual localization, application testing, terminology management, and software development services for the international market. Relying on our expert in-country linguistic resources, excellent localization engineering capabilities and professional project management, CSOFT provides a broad range of language and technological solutions in over 90 languages for a variety of industries, including IT, Life Sciences, Manufacturing, Automotive, and Financial Services.

Leveraging our extensive experience in internationalization and application development, CSOFT provides targeted solutions to help companies develop and deploy products in the global market quickly and competitively. Headquartered in the heart of Beijing’s Central Business District (CBD), CSOFT maintains additional operations in Boston, San Francisco, New York, Japan, Germany, Sweden, Canada and Australia, as well as dedicated language teams in all major European and Asian markets.

CSOFT has one of the largest technical infrastructures in China, a fact that recently won the company recognition as one of the world’s Top 30 language service providers (LSPs) by Common Sense Advisory, a well-respected market research group. This unique background of technical expertise enables CSOFT to provide highly affordable localization solutions that are both scalable and flexible. Backed by our ISO 9001 and ISO 13485 certifications, CSOFT provides professional end-to-end project execution to meet the demands of our worldwide clients.