Tag: Shanghai



Di Lu, corporate relations manager for the WCC in Shanghai, moderates a panel during a residency for SMP students in Beijing in March 2021.

Di Lu, Olin’s corporate manager for the Weston Career Center out of Asia, will be recognized February 23 for her outstanding contributions to the AUCA, a coalition of international higher education institutions in China that promotes educational, academic and cultural exchange among students and institutions.

“Di Lu who does fantastic work with our students and it’s wonderful that she’s being recognized for her efforts,” said Dorothy Kittner, senior associate dean for Olin’s Center for Experiential Learning and interim associate dean and director of the WCC.

Di Lu, left, corporate relations manager for the WCC in Shanghai, moderates a panel during a residency for SMP students in Beijing in March 2021.

Kittner lauded Lu’s contributions, which include providing networking events in real time in Asia virtually for Chinese students back in St. Louis, identifying student experiential learning projects with firms in Asia and collecting job placement data for students when they return to China.

Lu said she’s proud to have had a role for the past four years with the AUCA’s Student Career Committee representing Olin.

“It has been challenging yet rewarding to source opportunities to students studying in the US and pursuing jobs in Asia,” she said. “It’s exciting to see more Asia-based employers join us in providing students various career options. Hearing the stories of our students who shined in their first jobs in Asia always makes me extremely happy.”

She says the work is a recognition of Olin’s strategic focus on providing students with global opportunities. “Though it’s an award to me as a recipient, I’d like to consider it as a recognition of our team efforts to support students’ career development globally.”

AUCA—originally known as American Universities’ China Association—was founded in 2014 by three American university representatives and now includes more than 150 representatives from more than 90 leading global universities. The organization is transforming to include non-American universities and, while known in China as the Oversea Universities’ China Association, continues to go by AUCA.

The organization’s Career Events Working Committee, representing 20 universities, nominated Lu for the recognition. The organization is gathering February 23 for its annual award ceremony and mixer, where Lu will be recognized.

Lu has been instrumental in representing WashU Olin to students and Olin alumni in China and helping to make connections among them across the country. She was heavily involved in a series of virtual events in October 2020, for example, that helped connect specialized master’s degree students from China when they couldn’t travel to the United States for their classes. Those efforts garnered AUCA recognition as well.

She was also involved in organizing and hosting weeklong meetups in Beijing and Shanghai with SMP students to interact with classmates, engage with alumni, participate in our industry speaker series and meet with a career coach. Those were in spring 2021.




In March, Chinese students gathered in Beijing and Shanghai for two weeklong residency programs. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the residencies were the first time many of the students met in person.

Members of the Weston Career Center team in both the US and China designed the programs, and undergraduate, MBA and specialized masters students attended.

Each day’s activities centered on one of Olin’s pillars of excellence: values-based, data-driven decision making; global experiences; entrepreneurial spirit; and experiential learning. The week culminated with an experiential learning project to solve a real-world business problem for the athletic footwear company New Balance.

Throughout the week, students interacted with classmates, engaged with alumni, listened to industry leaders and met with their career coaches.

The human connection

The opportunity to meet her peers face to face stood out to Ruxin (Andrea) Zeng, MSBA ’22. She’d met her cohort through Zoom, but the residency gave her opportunities to interact with her peers in a casual environment.

Learning from industry leaders

Wenxin (Hugo) Xue, MSCA ’22, enjoyed the opportunity to listen to industry leaders. As a business analytics student, he was excited to learn more about the future of big data and how it could affect his career.

Endless opportunities in business

Similarly, Yang Shen, MSBA ’22, found it helpful to learn more about different opportunities in business, whether he networked with employers or listened to various distinguished alumni.

The WCC team planned excursions for students to enjoy during breaks from their coursework. The Beijing students took a day trip to the Great Wall of China, while the Shanghai students took a night cruise down the Huangpu River.




Pictured at top: Duckenson Joseph, MBA ’21, questioning a store clerk at one of the Shanghai coffee shops he visited with his counterparts on team 10.

After living in China as an expat for five years, Zach Frantz came home to the Midwest to start his WashU MBA. A few weeks later, he was back, viewing China with fresh eyes as he launched into a study of business models in a global environment.

Frantz, MBA ’21, was one among nearly 100 first-year students on the final leg of a long ‘round-the-world trip to launch their MBA studies. After two weeks in St. Louis, the students spent a week in Washington, DC, two weeks in Barcelona and on July 25, landed in Beijing to start the final phase of their journey.

Zach Frantz, MBA ’21, with his teammates in Shanghai collecting data on potential Chinese competitors to Strange Donuts for their business models course.

The students had two days to explore the Great Wall, the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace before they decamped by bullet train on a four-and-a-half-hour trip to Shanghai on Sunday.

“For sure, I’m looking at China and business models very differently. Before, I’d try to look at a business model and see how a company makes money, but this has really given me a much stronger framework to understand how decisions are made,” Frantz said in the midst of a morning excursion with his team, collecting first-hand data on pastry and coffee shops.

That excursion was a key component of the “Business Models in a Global Climate” course taught by Daniel Elfenbein and Anne Marie Knott. The students have divided their time between lectures and simulations conducted inside a downtown Shanghai hotel ballroom and trips into the field to collect real-world data to bring the lectures to life.

The course turns on a simple question: Should St. Louis-based Strange Donuts consider an offer to expand in the Shanghai market? Answering that question required a foundation in business models and an in-the-field examination of the competitive landscape.

Great progress—and adjustment

For the most part, the students’ time has been heavily programmed with classwork, team projects, outside reading, presentations and field excursions.

Susie Bonwich at a pastry shop in downtown Shanghai, collecting data to use in a recommendation: Should Strange Donuts enter the Shanghai market?

Before Friday morning’s excursion, Associate Dean Patrick Moreton—the chief organizer of the global immersion—congratulated the students on the progress they’d made over their first week in Shanghai.

“You’re absorbing and engaging with the environment in a way we’ve never seen before,” Moreton said, citing the papers, presentations and simulation results students have submitted. “You’re doing a great job and while you might not be seeing it, we’re feeling good about the learning outcomes we’re getting.”

Moreton also noted that the faculty and staff were responding to student feedback by tweaking and adjusting the workload to ensure students could balance learning with additional opportunities to get out into the community.

Frantz was enthusiastic about the work, however. A Midwestern boy who worked as a math teacher for four years in Kunming in China’s Yunnan province and a year as a translator in Shenzhen, he chose WashU Olin because he was ready to return to his network of friends and family in the Midwest—and because of Olin’s newly launched global immersion.

MBA students in the global immersion developing a strategy for the next round of a retail computer simulation they ran during their second day in Shanghai. They ran three simulations in the morning, visited Chinese convenience stores in the early afternoon, and completed three additional simulations in the late afternoon.

He said the program had already given him new data-driven tools to help him evaluate business in a more sophisticated way and that he was excited to return to St. Louis to start the core curriculum.

“If school is easy, why would you pay a bunch of money to come here?” he asked. “I came here to be challenged and push myself.”

Coursework and data collection in the field continues next week with course by Fuqiang Zhang and Lingxiu Dong on “Business Operations in a Global Context.” Students complete their trip around the global on August 15 when they return to St. Louis.

Pictured at top: Duckenson Joseph, MBA ’21, questioning a store clerk at one of the Shanghai coffee shops he visited with his counterparts on team 10.




Sharon Mazimba at the Yu Garden in Shanghai.

Sharon Mazimba, MBA ’19, wrote this for the Olin Blog.

After what seemed like months of preparation, two flight delays, and the longest 16-hour flight later, we landed in Shanghai, China, a group of about 70 first- and second-year MBAs, exhausted but intact and ready for the intense week ahead. They were all part of a spring break overseas intensive designed to provide globally based education for the students and pilot the expanded global MBA experience for the incoming class of 2021 MBA students.

The next morning, we dove straight into our operations course, eager to understand how strategy is implemented through operations, specifically looking at the retail industry. The course would occur over the week, a mix of talks from retail industry experts, practical excursions—including visits to Zara, Uniqlo and H&M stores in the busy Pudong shopping area—a factory visit to Mudoo (a sports apparel factory) and the newly built Adidas distribution center in Suzhou.

Both the talks and excursions were an eye-opening look into the retail process from end to end, as well as the nature of business in China and how different it is from the US or other western countries. There is a highly relational and perception-based approach in the Chinese market, aspects of which I observed throughout the week. Two experiences in particular drive this home for me.

Me at the Yu Gardens
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The first was a talk by Olin EMBA student Salem Cibani, who attends the program in Shanghai’s Fudan University, who shared key insights about the fashion industry. He spoke about Ports 1961, a luxury brand launched in Canada, which then moved to China to take advantage of opportunities there.

The move required the brand to completely shift their strategy in China; their products were priced significantly higher in the Chinese market because of the perception that a higher price and a distinctly Chinese aesthetic equated higher quality.

The second was how long it took to plan and build the Adidas distribution center—a three-year endeavor that involved significant pre-planning and relationship building to accomplish. This was the example most salient to me; other speakers and our Shanghai located mentors also gave a number of anecdotes about how you had to know people and be well-connected to truly establish yourself in the Chinese market and get things done.

While we learned a lot, we also had a chance to explore small but extremely cool areas of Shanghai. The city is vast and one week is not nearly enough to see it all. The Bund had amazing views of Shanghai Tower, the Yu Garden was a beautiful escape from the hustle and bustle of the city, and the Tianzifang area had amazing souvenirs, quaint tea shops, and my favorite—lots of street food!

Looking back on this trip, one of my most significant takeaways (and something I will be carrying into my career moving forward) was how critical it is to tailor your strategy to different cultures; especially if you are looking to be a global player. Most businesses fail at this. The second was how incredibly unique China is. The country’s manufacturing capabilities have allowed the country to become a hotspot for major retailers to go for their apparel needs while still maintaining a distinctly Chinese way of conducting business. It was a fascinating phenomenon to observe and be a part of.




Kurt Dirks and Kevin Xu

The annual China alumni dinner was March 9, 2019, in Shanghai, featuring about 400 alumni—incoming students, parents and friends of Washington University for the forum and meal.

The annual event aims to increase the visibility of Washington University overseas and to reconnect international alumni in China.

Kevin Xu, chair of the China Alumni Club and International Alumni, Michael Shen and EMOF Class 16 co-organized the event.

Kurt Dirks, vice chancellor for international affairs and Bank of America Professor of Leadership, attended the dinner and shared updates of Washington University with the attendees. He also thanked Kevin Xu for his outstanding leadership of China Alumni Club.

Faculty, staff and guest attendees included:

  • Ohad Kadan, H. Frederick Hagemann, Jr. Professor of Finance and Vice Dean for Education and Globalization at Olin Business School.
  • Steve Malter, senior associate dean of undergraduate and graduate programs at Olin Business School.
  • David Konig, professor of history and professor of law at Washington University School of Law.
  • Bill Xu, head of China office, Washington University in St. Louis.
  • Emma Zhao, international alumni and development programs.
  • Paul Shao, managing director for the Washington University–Fudan University joint Executive MBA program in Shanghai.
  • Roy Li, investment associate at Washington University in St. Louis.
  • Dean Xiongwen Lu, School of Management, Fudan University