"Every year when it comes to the college entrance examination, it is on the hot search, but I don't really want to mention it. ”
The person who said this may be the child that all Chinese parents are most looking forward to cultivating - in order to admit her, Tsinghua University took the initiative to drop 60 points and let her choose any major; When he graduated, as an outstanding student representative of Tsinghua School of Economics and Management, he was received by Chen Jining, then president of Tsinghua University and now secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee. After graduation, he worked in investment banking for 10 years and was the highest-ranked employee ...... in the same class of JPMorgan Chase Asia Pacific
(Picture "Little Joy").Nowadays, some people continue to ask questions on the Internet: What happened to Zhang Yingyan, a talented woman who attracted olive branches from professors of various majors at Tsinghua University in the independent admissions interview?
Now when everyone talks about me, I am the 'champion of liberal arts in Sichuan Province' and 'all-round development of morality, intelligence, physical fitness and beauty'. Zhang Yingyan changed her words, "But I missed an answer sheet in the college entrance examination that year, and I only got into Tsinghua University by relying on extra points for independent enrollment, and I can't do sports, so these two things are exaggerated." ”
The radiant woman in front of her makes it difficult to associate it with the term "female executive of a unicorn company". On the day of the interview, Zhang Yingyan, who had just finished the last meeting, was wearing an oatmeal-colored coat with the green of a silk scarf exposed by the collar, and a long string of colored spar earrings flashed between her short hair over her ears. If you don't know her, you may think that this is just an ol with a lot of interest in life.
And this happy aura of going wherever you go, it's hard to say that it doesn't come from the edification of the family. Her parents love to make friends, and when she was a child, there were constant guests at home, she was not disgusted at all, and she was willing to perform generously for her uncles and aunts. On weekends, when her parents go to the teahouse to play mahjong, she can also find her own fun on the side, and make friends with the teahouse waiter and strange tea customers.
Zhang Yingyan in life. (Photo provided by the interviewee).
Zhang Yingyan believes that this non-stage fright trait that she has often developed by meeting strangers since she was a child has later become the key to her being looked down upon in the independent admissions interview. "Sichuan and Chongqing life ** is a joke. I was nervous, but during the interview, I felt like I was talking to the professors. Maybe the professors didn't expect that good students could be so fun and relaxed, so they had a very good impression of me. ”
Listening to her talk about her own experience, you will have a feeling that "the world is for e-people". But in Zhang Yingyan's view, she is not the so-called "other people's child". Her parents are not strict with her, except for "doing her homework before school goes home", they only expect her to live happily.
When she first entered junior high school, she had been casual since elementary school, and she had the experience of declining grades. Zhang Yingyan, who felt particularly frustrated, began to make up for her homework, especially the worst math, and even studied the content of the next semester by herself every winter and summer vacation. When she finally "turned the tables against the wind" in her grades, mathematics had become her favorite subject. In the mock test of the third year of high school, she was able to get the first place in Chengdu almost every time.
The mentality of "not admitting defeat", which continued from study to work, made Zhang Yingyan successful, and also made her lose her way. I chose the Department of Finance of the School of Economics and Management because the best seniors are there; After graduation, I chose investment banking because of the whereabouts of the top people; In the 10 years of investment banking, in order to break through, he even "rationalized" the involution by himself, often working overtime until the early hours of the morning, and did not rest on weekends ......
The mentality of "not admitting defeat" has made Zhang Yingyan successful, and it has also made her lose her way. (Picture unsplash).At J.P. Morgan Chase in Hong Kong, Yingyan Zhang provides clients with advisory services on listing, investment and financing, and M&A transactions, and participates in transactions with tens of billions of dollars, talking about macro-level industry trends and looking at all issues from top to bottom. But after seven or eight years of work, Ms. Zhang began to feel a vague sense of insecurity. No one told her whether the decisions she had made were correct in practice. From study to work, my achievements have always been deeply bound to the big platform. Who is you after leaving the platform and taking off the title? What else can be done?
If you stick with it at JPMorgan Chase, you might become a bank executive. But Zhang Yingyan felt that this was not what she wanted.
"I hope that no matter where I am, I can have the ability to start from zero. ”
To achieve this goal, she made a decision that many people did not foresee - to return to the mainland and join Ximuyuan, a start-up domestic skincare brand that focuses on Asian sensitive skin care, even at the cost of a 90% salary cut.
"I'm used to settling accounts in everything I do. ”
From "marrying" in the top elite circle to an entrepreneurial company, and cutting salaries by 90%, this account is not cost-effective. But Zhang Yingchang's answer is very simple: "There is the state I yearn for the most on this road." ”
Before resigning, Zhang Yingyan had known Liu Shichao for a long time, and also took the opportunity to visit Ximuyuan, which he founded.
She found that the living conditions of all the members of the company, including the boss, were very enviable to her - they were all hardworking, results-oriented, and positive. Even though the first three years of the company's development completely overlapped with the epidemic period, they did not start a business with bitterness, but always with a sense of relaxation.
The sense of relaxation is the state that Zhang Yingyan yearns for. (Photo provided by the interviewee)."I like the culture of a group of people who are very simple, happy, and get along well with each other and do very specific and interesting things. ”
As a former Procter & Gamble, Liu Shichao has a similar big platform background to Zhang Yingyan, but he has experienced more ups and downs than her: because he was unwilling to accept the status quo, he gave up his high starting point to start a business, but he failed twice and fell into a low point in his life. In the end, at the age of nearly 40, he stood up again, started his own business three times, and finally started his own sign.
What moved Zhang Yingchang was not only Liu Shichao's "strong mentality", but also his keen awareness. "He is more like a 'super product manager', keen on delving into art and beauty, with a strong sense of appreciation and sensibility, and can even detect the difference in the concentration of a few tenths of a percent of the flavor in the product......”
In Liu Shichao, Zhang Yingyan saw the influence she admired, and what she was worthy of following - the road after leaving the big platform could still be so desirable.
But she is accustomed to settling accounts, and she has not abandoned her judgment as an investment banker because of her sensibility.
In those ten years, she was deeply involved in many domestic and cross-border transactions, observed too many industries, and knew the business operation model well. He was also sent to New York, where he worked with people of all nationalities and backgrounds. She knows how to calculate revenue and development prospects through corporate decision-making, understand the business red and blue oceans in different regions, and adapt to corporate strategies and consumer needs.
(Picture unsplash).
In Zhang Yingyan's value measurement system, Ximuyuan is very powerful, has the potential for long-term development, and has quickly "gained a firm foothold", and is still in a promising stage for her.
For someone like me who has never run a business, it's valuable to be part of building a company from 1 to 10. ”
You must know that Zhang Yingyan's annual salary in the investment bank is seven figures. And this time, she chose to "cast" herself.
When she first entered Ximuyuan, Zhang Yingyan once again confirmed the correctness of her decision-making and the bottom-up changes she expected. It's just that she didn't expect itFrom the grand to the subtle, the "revolution" is even more difficult than imagined.
The working model of a startup is extremely result-oriented: you don't care about the process, you don't care if you work hard, you don't care about the reason why things don't go as expected, you only care about the result. Instead of bothering to explain, it is better to think of remedies. If there is a problem, it will also be pointed out directly. It's very different from the work environment she used to work in.
I thought I didn't care much about face anymore, but I was still very frustrated when I first arrived. From 'I don't know I don't know', to 'I know I don't know', to finding myself more and more things I can't handle......At that time, I felt that I couldn't do anything, and I was in a valley of despair. In the end, it was the "unyielding" energy in her bones that made Zhang Yingyan let go of her expectations for external evaluation and walked out of her own extreme moment.
After joining Ximuyuan, Zhang Yingyan became more and more clear about her direction. (Photo provided by the interviewee).
While dealing with herself, Zhang Yingyan is also using her way to "prune" the source of the river.
Zhang Yingyan, who loves economics, is very familiar with business knowledge. And Xi Muyuan just has the "common sense" that she and Liu Shichao attach importance to: not to pursue one move to defeat the enemy, but to insist on "fine water" investment in product research and development and brand building. Relying on focus and calmness, Ximuyuan, which has only been established for more than 4 years, has not only achieved a rapid breakthrough, but also made most of the people who know it become its users, and many users who have used it have used continuous repurchase to express their recognition of the product.
As a skincare company, data is very important to Ximuyuan. But Zhang Yingchang found that everyone has a set of data in their hands, and it is very inefficient to synchronize and report.
To this end, she set up a business analysis (BI) team from 0, helped the company build a data-based dashboard, and led the IT team to launch an internal data platform, which will put the data of operations, sales, repurchase, user portraits, and even the company's internal finance, human resources and other departments into this tool. Currently, it is being used very high internally.
Zhang Yingyan attaches more importance to the influence of people than tools. Driven by her, a "former investment banker", the team gradually developed the habit of using the logic of "accounting" to promote work, whether it is BI strategy or marketing promotion, they are more combined with data for analysis and use the same language system to communicate.
(Picture unsplash)."But there are some emotional things that don't count, and we have to trust him and her. Zhang Yingyan always insists on creating a positive, happy and upward atmosphere for the team. "I'm an ENFJ and I'm a sensual personality. When I first came to Ximuyuan, I also liked beautiful things. ”
As a skincare brand for sensitive skin in Asia, Ximuyuan has always been committed to delivering the healing power of nature, so that every consumer can get a safe, effective and pleasant skincare experience, so as to regain the beauty of life. This deeply touched Zhang Yingyan: "As long as my life can create beauty for the world and provide a sense of pleasure comparable to art, it is worth it." ”
In Ximuyuan, Ms. Zhang's working hours have become freer, but the intensity of her work has increased, sometimes from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., often with five or six meetings at a time.
But Zhang Yingyan has never had communication difficulties. In her view, from JPMorgan Chase to Ximuyuan, it is a very gender-friendly, flat-managed environment. "Many of the channel leaders are women, and there are a lot of girls in the company, and many times the attendees are all girls. Here, there is no gender discrimination, let alone workplace repression. ”
As the time spent in Ximuyuan became longer, Zhang Yingyan obviously felt that she had slowly "settled".
At different stages of life, Zhang Yingyan will also have different requirements for herself. (Fig.)Provided by the interviewee)."In the past, the work of investment banking was too specialized, which limited the development of curiosity to a certain extent, but I love to ponder and study the rules, and now I have a lot of material to observe. ”
Despite her heavy workload, Zhang still sets aside a large chunk of her time to exercise regularly and read a variety of books.
Life has entered 30+, and the anxiety on Zhang Yingyan's body is getting weaker and lighter. Talking about the online diary she wrote in her sophomore year one day, she was overjoyed - the little girl back then, full of thought that she was going to get married in 2 years. And today, she no longer believes in the rhetoric of "what age you have to complete what task".
"I think women's success should be based on freedom and self-sufficiency. No matter where you are, you can have the confidence and confidence to start from 0. ”Zhang Yingchang believes that the necessary condition for achieving this state is to have a solid self, become an interdisciplinary talent, and constantly iterate and self-practice.
In Ximuyuan, Zhang Yingyan engaged in the cause of "beauty" as she wished. (Photo provided by the interviewee).Although Ximuyuan, who has been able to "make blood" on his own, is not currently involved in investment and financing, Zhang Yingyan has also been working hard for the company's valuation in the investment market. In December 2023, Ximuyuan was listed on the 2023 "Guangzhou Unicorn Innovation Enterprise", becoming the only "beauty unicorn" in Guangzhou and even the entire Chinese beauty industry since 2020. Her future task is to use her expertise to work on acquisitions in the coming years to complement the company's sub-brands. "It's also the way to become a world-class beauty company. ”
In the face of this increasingly large team, she also put forward her own requirements.
I'm more self-consistent and can explain why I work hard and know how happy progress brings me, so I want to spread that across the lines so that everyone knows what they're getting out of their hard work every day. This is meaningful for a person's entire life. ”
She attaches great importance to the cultivation of her subordinates, and will try her best to get along with her subordinates in a cooperative rather than managerial mode, helping everyone find a "sense of accomplishment brought by progress", so that they can build a new mentality in the process of feeling their own growth, so as to take the whole work state to another level.
And Ximuyuan's friends also gave her a lot of surprises. They made Zhang Yingyan realize,It turns out that "progressive" is not a trait that only exists in the traditional narrow elite circle. She is also often touched by her colleagues' spirit of excellence and strong desire for self-growth.
Creek Wood Source. (Photo provided by the interviewee)."The macro is what we have to accept, and the micro is what we can make a difference about. Liu Shichao often mentions this sentence from Zhang Yingyan and Charlie Munger, whom he both likes. In the past, Zhang Yingyan may have felt more at the theoretical level; But after getting acquainted with Ximuyuan, she really experienced the achievements and happiness in practice.
Maintain your own growth, create a positive impact, and create a good "micro-ecology" ...... for everyoneIn Zhang Yingyan's view, this is the most meaningful thing she can do as a manager, as a woman, and as an individual.