Ma Xuezheng has a rich experience in life, but the most widely known is still her 17 years in Lenovo.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public number ” character chief concept “(ID: sxrenwuguan) , author: Xiaoman.
01
The news of Ma Xuezhen’s death suddenly came, and countless people in the industry were shocked.
Yang Yuanqing responded in the circle of friends for the first time:
Ma Xuezheng has a rich experience in life, but the most widely known is still she is Lenovo’s 17 years.
Talking about the relationship between Ma Xuezheng and Lenovo, you have to start from a Hong Kong event 31 years ago.
In 1988, Lenovo opened in Hong Kong, and Ma Xuezheng accompanied the dean of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Zhou Guangzhao to cut the ribbon.
The Lenovo at the time was still a small company with only a dozen people, and the employees were huddled in a small, dilapidated factory.
When Ma Xuezhen entered the office, Liu Chuanzhi was ambitiously portraying the grand blueprint of Lenovo’s future to the public. This bloody speech deeply infected her.
Two years later, Ma Xuezheng gave up the position of deputy director who was close at hand and officially joined Lenovo. She said: “Entrepreneur and politician have similar charm.”
Liu Chuanzhi joked that she was a “revolutionary revolution.”
From the perspective of Ma Xuezheng’s later life, her decision was no less than a mighty “self-revolution.”
In 1978, Ma Xuezheng graduated from Capital Normal University and was assigned to the Chinese Academy of Sciences for foreign cooperation projects.
The 20-year-old Ma Xuezheng has a high level of enthusiasm and excels in his peers.
For example, she has worked with several colleagues to organize geological survey projects in the Qinghai-Tibet area.
In three years, Ma Xuezheng went into Tibet five times and crossed the entire Qinghai-Tibet Plateau from south to north and completed a geological survey.
In the energetic era, with a simple and concise work style, Ma Xuezheng quickly stood out from the crowd.
After, Ma Xuezheng became the youngest director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
At the age of 30, Ma Xuezheng can enjoy expert salary treatment, which is the level that others can reach in their 50s and 60s.
She has also translated for Deng Xiaoping, and most of her contacts are famous scholars, Nobel laureates, foreign ambassadors, and science and technology ministers.Wait for such big guys.
Before joining the association, Ma Xuezheng is already the director of the two departments of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. She is responsible for the cooperation project of the International Cooperation Bureau of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It is only one step away from being promoted to the deputy director.
From the experience of Ma Xuezheng in the first half of his life, her career can be described as smooth and enviable.
But when the spring breeze is triumphant, Ma Xuezheng chose to abandon politics and business.
This is both an inevitable result and the inevitable choice of Ma Xuezheng’s own personality.
Ma Xuezheng is a pragmatic and pragmatic person, and his work is rigorous and rigorous.
But at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, she has heard such arguments: “You must not let Ma Xuezheng the authority, otherwise the people in the bureau have to go halfway.”
Maybe it is the official situation of “the height is not cold”, let her start to look forward to the free air outside.
Nothing is unique.
Liu Chuanzhi was also a cadre of the leading cadre department of the Personnel Bureau of the Chinese Academy of Sciences before he founded Lenovo in 1984.
Under the wave of the spring breeze, two ambitious people have come together.
At that time, no one would have thought that this man named Ma Xuezheng would become Lenovo’s most powerful woman in the future.
02
Abandoning the career of Ru Jin, entering the “small company” Lenovo’s Ma Xuezheng, is not full of confidence, she described the time:
“In the early 90s, when you went to the sea, you couldn’t see any direction at all, and the pressure was great.”
People playing in the heart, and Liu Chuanzhi.
A person who is about to be promoted to the position of deputy director, why suddenly come to his own small company?
For this reason, Lenovo also held a special meeting to discuss Ma Xuezheng’s “true intentions”, but the meeting finally passed the full vote of Ma Xuezheng.
At the beginning, Liu Chuanzhi asked Ma Xuezheng to be a worker in the production line. As a salesman in front of the vending machine, Ma Xuezheng had no complaints.
In Lenovo, Ma Xuezheng once again showed superior ability to work.
After 6 months, with a fluent English, she was promoted to assistant president of Lu Tanping, general manager of Hong Kong Lenovo.
After that, Ma Xuezheng was promoted to the deputy general manager of Hong Kong Lenovo.
In 1994, Ma Xuezheng hosted the listing of Lenovo’s Hong Kong.
图: Lenovo Group successfully listed in Hong Kong in 1994
Lv Tanping, the general manager of Lenovo Hong Kong, was out of the game and gave Ma Xuezhen more opportunities.
In 1997, Ma Xuezheng completed the merger of Hong Kong and Beijing Lenovo. A brand new Lenovo was born at the forefront of the international capital market.
Ma Xuezheng gradually gained the full trust of Liu Chuanzhi, and she is getting closer to the core of Lenovo’s power.
Since then, she has become Lenovo’s senior vice president, and entered the board of directors with Yang Yuanqing and Guo Wei as executive directors, which also laid the future power structure of Lenovo.
In 1998, Lenovo was in an unprecedented crisis, and its debt-to-asset ratio was nearly 200%.
In order to raise funds, Ma Xuezheng and Liu Chuanzhi laid a meal for the bank’s executives. As a result, no one came to eat the meal.
Finally, Lenovo’s holding company took out all of Lenovo’s stocks as collateral, and Ma Xuezheng and Liu Chuanzhi patted their chests to guarantee a year’s repayment.
After 10 months, Lenovo completed the repayment in advance.
After the crisis, Lenovo Group completed the spin-off in 2000. Ma Xuezheng officially became the CFO of Lenovo Group, heading the Hong Kong branch, strategic investment and investor relations work.
This year, she was named “Best CFO” by Asia Finance magazine.
As Lenovo’s first CFO, Ma Xuezheng handed in a perfect transcript.
She not only keeps Lenovo’s balance sheet in good order, but also presided over Lenovo’s entry into the main win, and PCCW and AOL strategic cooperation, as well as investment in Sohu, Jinshan, New Oriental and so on.
At the same time, Ma Xuezheng personally led the team to Lausanne, and won the qualification of the TOP sponsor of the Olympic Games for Lenovo.
After that, Ma Xuezheng has been ranked among the top 50 most powerful business women in Fortune magazine for three consecutive years.
Under the leadership of Ma Xuezheng, Lenovo established international financial standards and introduced US accounting auditing standards.
In 2003, the SARS epidemic ravaged China’s land, and many companies were overwhelmed.
But Lenovo’s net income has grown miraculously by 4%. Among them, Ma Xuezheng’s strategy of international business alliance has contributed.
Later, some commentators said: “Ma Xuezheng itself is a symbol of Lenovo’s internationalization.”
But the real reputation of Ma Xuezheng in the square is the merger of Lenovo and IBM personal computers.
In 2004, Yang Yuanqing’s proposal for Lenovo’s acquisition of the IBM PC division was rejected by Lenovo’s board of directors for the second time.
Working with Liu Chuanzhi for 14 years, Ma Xuezheng is very familiar with Liu Chuanzhi, who is eager to save himself. She judges that Liu Chuanzhi will not object to the acquisition from the heart.
But at the time, Lenovo’s annual revenue was less than one-third of the IBM PC division, and the risk of trying to annex such a company was too great.
Later, Ma Xuezheng assisted Yang Yuanqing to find 3Third-party companies: McKinsey, Goldman Sachs and GA Investment, arranged for them to analyze the pros and cons of the mergers and acquisitions of the directors of Legend Holdings.
The results are well known. In December of that year, Lenovo Group completed the acquisition of the IBM PC division. This was described as a “snake swallow” acquisition news has been a sensation.
Figure: Lenovo acquires IBM computer business
The acquisition ended with a lower price of $1.25 billion, which is expected by many market participants.
At the press conference of Lenovo’s acquisition of the IBM PC department, a reporter asked if there were other subsidiary conditions in the negotiation process. Ma Xuezheng said in his reply: “Your question is for the Lenovo negotiating team. The biggest compliment.”
Since then, Lenovo has become the world’s third-largest PC producer.
After the acquisition, her attention gradually turned to private equity funds, and her initial retirement, but Liu Chuanzhi asked her to send a new Lenovo.
In May 2006, Ma Xuezheng handed over the first financial report after Lenovo acquired IBM.
At the same time, she also submitted her own resignation report.
Recalling the experience of Lenovo, Ma Xuezheng said to the media modestly:
“I always thought that Lenovo gave me the opportunity, otherwise I might still be a deputy bureau-level cadre.”
And Liu Chuanzhi also said: “I am working for Ma Xuezheng.”
The weight of Ma Xuezheng in Lenovo is evident.
03
In 2007, Ma Xuezheng officially announced his retirement from Lenovo.
At the time, this caused a lot of “earthquakes” in Lenovo. In the meantime, Liu Chuanzhi also tried to retain, but they were all declined by Ma Xuezheng.
Ma Xuezheng does not want to go to Legend Holdings and Hony Capital, she said:
“You have to know that there are a lot of people there, and you have a big sister? You have to think about it.”
After leaving Lenovo, Ma Xuezheng completed the third turn of his life, joined the investment fund TPG Asia, became TPG Managing Director and partner.
After joining TPG for two years, Ma Xuezheng completed two major projects: investment Daphne and Wumart, with a total investment of about 1.4 billion yuan.
This is also the most important project of TPG in China in two years. Without exception, it was taken over by Ma Xuezheng.
“Now there are so many investments and funds, I’m going to grab a project, I think 90% of the projects ICan take it down. “Ma Xuezheng entering the PE industry is still confident.
In 2011, Ma Xuezheng, who was close to Huajia, started his own business and established his own PE company, Boyu Capital, and became the chairman of the board. He completed the transformation from “Female No. 2” to “Female No.1”.
Ma Xuezheng has rarely been interviewed by the media. Since then, she has basically declined all interviews.
Bo Yu Capital has many well-known investment cases, including investing in Alibaba with CITIC Capital and Guokai Finance in 2012, investing in MicroBank, Netease Cloud Music, Tongcheng Travel, and Ikang Guobin.
In addition, with the listing of WuXi PharmaTech, B Station and Kishi Pharmaceuticals last year, Boyu Capital’s exit record in recent years is also very rich.
When joining TPG, some people have commented on Ma Xuezheng: strong learning ability, strong communication skills and strong multi-tasking ability.
Ma Xuezheng’s “multitasking” is also reflected in balancing the relationship between family and work.
When her daughter was just four or five years old, it was also the busiest time for Ma Xuezheng. She often went home after work and made the rice into semi-finished products, and then went to commercial entertainment. Mr. came back and did the rest of the dinner.
In this regard, she said: “Be conscious of handling various relationships, this can be done.”
In yesterday, Liu Chuanzhi issued a tribute to Ma Xuezheng:
“I was shocked and saddened by the news of the unfortunate death of the snow sign.
The snow sign in the eyes of everyone is a bright and beautiful CFO, an investor with high spirits, and a business-oriented Mulan, which is the hero of the internationalization of Lenovo Group.
However, what I am particularly unforgettable is the little-known hardship she has paid for the company’s development.
Snow is smart, diligent, optimistic, tenacious, and always full of energy. She has infected everyone around her with her own efforts and enthusiasm. She is a good partner, good comrade.
I will miss her forever!
Snow sign all the way!
04
Ma Xuezheng, born in Tianjin in 1952, said that he received an encouraging education from childhood.
In her own words: “It’s always the best student in homework, and confident in many things can be done better than others.”
From beginning to end, Ma Xuezheng is a strong person, she always thinks about how to get things done.
Before his death, Ma Xuezheng’s titles include independent non-executive directors of Lenovo, independent non-executive directors of HKEx and Swire Pacific, and independent directors of Schneider Electric.
The outside world once called her with Liu Chuanzhi and Yang Yuanqing as Lenovo’s “Troika””.
Ma Xuezheng, who just entered the commercial field, actually has some time to adapt.
Ma Xuezheng, once a pure intellectual, encountered the first problem in drinking at the winery.
In the face of those who hold the glass, “If you don’t drink, you can’t look down on me.” Later, she also learned to pour the wine.
Ma Xuezheng caught up with the Cultural Revolution when he was a teenager, and went to the northeast to cut the team. Her own resilience comes down to the product of the times.
She said: “At that time, we always felt that things could not have passed. We still have to do things honestly and learn the skills. It will be useful sooner or later.”
Ma Xuezheng likes an ancient poem that he remembered when he was a child. It was the “Orchid” made by Xue Net in the Ming Dynasty. Later, she often recited in front of people:
“I love the orchids and the fragrant, not the color of the spring and the sun. The west wind is cold and deep under the forest, and no one is self-fragrance.”
Now, Youlan has gone, only to stay legendary.
Some sources:
1. “Ma Xuezheng: Mergers and Acquisitions”, Zhang Wei, “National Business”
2. “Ma Xuezheng: Elegant Wisdom Woman”, Liu Xinran, “Southern People Weekly”
3. “Ma Xuezheng: Dancing with Lenovo”, Anonymous, “SME Management and Technology”
4. “Ma Xuezheng: Lenovo’s “Capital Baby””, Pan Hongxiu, “Chinese Entrepreneur”
5. “Ma Xuezheng: Neutral Privilege”, Yang Yang, “21st Century Business Review”