What is your approach to leadership, and how do you empower your team members to thrive in the workplace?
These three mantras I try to live by are essential to pacing.
Optimistic thinking. Expect the best. How you perceive something or someone depends on the angle at which you view them. If you consider your situations from a positive perspective, you'll have better results. In my mind, the best is yet to come. Always.
• No bragging, no complaining. Eliminate these two and watch your world get better.
• Persistence. There's no victory, and there is no failure as long as you keep going. Maybe the path that you're on isn't the right one, but if you keep going, you will discover the right path. The secret is motivation. When you find what brings you joy, you'll be motivated to continue on that path.
One of the first questions I ask people who want to work for me is, “What kind of things make your eyes shine?” What kind of things are they particularly interested in or full of passion to do? That's what I need to know because if the motivation and the goals are there, I know what kind of support to provide. At my company, we're currently creating a personal growth plan for employees. What we're really asking is, “In what particular area can we support you to grow?”
I value motivation. I think it's the inner drive that makes people move and work hard. So, I hire people with passion.
We are dealing with cross-culture management seriously. As we have more and more people around the world joining us from different cultures, different time zones, and speaking different languages, the challenge lies in how we can bring people from different places and cultures together and engage and motivate them in a way that works for all of them.I also leverage a seven-dimensional leadership model as follows.
• Mission-driven. I try to make the company's mission resonate with employees' personal missions so that they're willing to work for the common vision.
• Customer insight. I make business decisions based on actual customer needs.
• Entrepreneurship. I take unknown risks and be innovative and ground-breaking.
• Empathy. I try to understand others and to know the reasons behind actions.
• Simplification. I figure out the core of all and get to the point directly.
• Constant learning. Society changes fast, and I learn new things to stay relevant.
• Empowering the team. I grow the whole team together since I know one single person cannot fulfill a great task.
Gender bias and discrimination continue to be prevalent in many workplaces. How do you ensure that DHGATE promotes a culture of diversity and inclusion?
• I advocate an inclusive, empowering culture in the company, and the company policies are designed to create an equal work environment for male and female employees, which is quite important to the continuous development of the company. At DHGATE group, women are granted fair opportunities and can enjoy the same rights and benefits as men in terms of recruitment, promotion, talent development, and other areas.
In addition, women can enjoy other benefits, like at least 128 days of full- pay maternity leave, baby care rooms for new moms, and so on.
• We encourage women colleagues to break limitations set by themselves. Currently, nearly half of DHGATE group employees are female, including those at different levels of management.
In your opinion, what unique skills or attributes do women bring to leadership roles, and how have these qualities contributed to your success as a CEO?
• Resilience, communication, and connection capability. Women recover from failures relatively easier than men. Generally speaking, women are better at communicating and connecting. As for me, one of my key skills is as a people connector, as the two platforms I have established connect people and businesses from around the world in one way or another.
What advice do you have for women who aspire to become CEOs or leaders in their respective fields?
For new entrepreneurs, I have three points to share:
• Firstly, for entrepreneurs, they should pursue things that enlighten their passions. Challenges are inevitable; most entrepreneurs have experienced that “win or go home” moment, but very few have survived. Most people would see 99.9% of problems and difficulties when facing a challenge. But when you do things that make your eyes shine, you may see 0.1% of possibility and opportunity, and I believe true entrepreneurs all focus on the 0.1%; their passion will drive them to do their best to make things happen.
• Secondly, I would like to emphasize the value of a team. We could always overcome difficulties and correct problems as a whole team. And at different stages, a good entrepreneur should think about the development of different team members. Besides, it is equally essential to absorb external talents and work with external experts such as think tanks because they could constantly provide new and leading knowledge from a more objective view, that's helping to avoid limitations and silos of internal teams.
• Thirdly, adaptation capacity, or resilience. With rapid changes in various industries, it is hard to deal with problems with only one solution. Therefore, for entrepreneurs, it is critical to have
the capacity to adapt to the changing market, even to foresee potential changes ahead of time, and make adjustments.
What initiatives has DHGATE group undertaken to support women's advancement in the workplace, such as mentorship or leadership development programs?
I am not only proud of the business performance of our team but also that we help each other find personal growth and new capabilities by providing a supportive environment.
One way we encourage and support employees' personal growth is to encourage every one of us in the company to have a “flag”, a New Year's resolution. The flag is nothing related to business but about our personal growth area. We ask all staff members, and that includes me, to put a personal flag on workplace messenger, and we run the personal flag program on Lark, a biz chat and collaboration platform. We want to make it transparent and stress-free, so everyone can see it and support each other in this personal growth area.
At DHGate, nearly half of our employees are female, including those at different levels of management. We have provided skills training, such as presentation and public speaking, for both men and women to grow. But in fact, skills do not matter that much. The most important thing is that women need to dare to stand up and speak out. Many women are constrained by their own mentality and consider themselves as “not good enough.” Yet, once a woman dares to speak, her enthusiasm can easily influence others, even if her skills are still developing. As long as a woman breaks her cognition barrier, her skills come naturally.
Fundamentally, we at DHgate recognize the role of women deep in our hearts without considering their roles or titles. For example, Serene Jiang is a young, energetic female colleague in our company. Although she joined DHgate quite recently at an entry-level position with very little e-commerce experience, we had her present MyyShop at our annual Seller Conference in July 2022, one of our key events. She surprised us with an excellent presentation, which assured her many responsibilities after that.
I'm also proud that more than 55 percent of the store owners on DHgate marketplace are women. Most importantly, I encourage women colleagues to break limitations set by themselves; mindset changing is the most important change. It unlocks all the doors so that you're no longer looking up at the ceiling.
Also, at DHgate, we have dedicated nursery rooms in our office to provide a safe and secure space for breastfeeding mothers. We encourage and organize activities to enable men and women to bring their children to the office. We also send gifts to the children to let them know how loved and missed they are. I'm happy when I see children walking or running in our workplace. I continue to encourage women to break the limitations they have set for themselves. Once that happens, we can move to the important step of focusing on our goals.
Finally, what are your future goals for DHGATE group?
• As part of its core strategy for 2023, DHGATE would continue to focus on the creator economy, actively promote the integration of online and offline global business, and upgrade the supply chain based on the needs of content creator buyers. Centered by the newly launched “Nebula Plan”, the Group plans to support 1,000 high- quality merchants and connect them with 1 million global content creators. The plan will create a new model of e-commerce that integrates online and offline business.
• Specifically, DHGATE Group aims to accelerate its entry into the US market, integrating its cutting-edge resources to create a new cross-border e-commerce O2O solution that combines its
robust global supply chain with social commerce, cross- border e-commerce, and local offline experiences.
• DHGATE plans to open 100 DH Showrooms within three years to provide services to overseas buyers, partners, and content creators and to make trending products and personalized services
more accessible. In February 2023, DHGATE launched the first DH Showroom in Los Angeles, which attracted numerous social media content creators with millions of followers. Also,
MyyShop made its first appearance at the SXSW Creative Industries Expo. on March 12, 2023, in Austin, Texas, attracting youngsters in the country to leverage its robust worldwide supply chain to tap global trade.
In addition, DHGATE has launched a local partner distribution system in the US domestic market, carrying out in-depth cooperation with DH Ambassadors, partners with a strong network and sales capabilities in vertical industries or regions. These partnerships will provide a one-stop service for the sourcing and assembly of goods, technical support, logistics warehousing, supply chain finance, etc., as well as competitive distribution commissions, thereby helping platform sellers to achieve their goals.
