Back in the Fall, I heard about an annual alumni dinner hosted in March and in China by the Penn Wharton China Center (PWCC) and Wharton Entrepreneurship. When my abroad semester came closer, I emailed about it and was able to register for this awesome dinner that happened last Thursday (March 1) at the PWCC.
Right when I arrived at PWCC, located in the Chaoyang district of Beijing (quite some traffic getting there), I got a name tag, took a photo with Ben (below), and ate some snacks (cappuccino + macarons). Funny enough, when my fellow Wharton friend and I were taking photos with Ben, 3 of the professional photographers swarmed in to take photos of us (we might be online somewhere soon :o). I wore my red blazer because that's the color of China haha, and one of the colors of Penn.
Afterwards, we said hi to the other 3 Wharton/Penn students who also decided to come to the event (I had emailed them about the event before we all came abroad... a little miffed that they didn't tell me they were coming beforehand and acted a little distant towards me).
Then, we entered the conference room for the panel - the theme was about the Globalization of China's Tech Companies. I found the topic really interesting, as I had just gone on the WIEP for the San Francisco Tech Sector and can see myself working at a tech company in the future. The whole imitation to innovation transition China experience in the last 10 years is really cool, and I was excited to hear what the Managing Director of Tencent, head of FinTech at Didi, and partner at Sequoia Capital China had to say about these recent developments. I liked hearing about how their organizations have worked towards opportunities for innovation and expansion worldwide (especially Tencent, since I'm still so impressed by WeChat's 19384 features haha). Though when really focusing, I could follow all the Chinese spoken, I still put on the headphones from time to time to hear the real-time translation to English.
After the panel, there was a networking reception (more food and drink!), then dinner. During the reception, I talked to a few alumni (mostly MBA grads) and surprisingly a student from Tsinghua, whose brother is a Wharton MBA grad. I also got to talk briefly with Karl Ulrich, Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship for Wharton. I asked him about his favorite LaunchPad podcast episode, in which he interviews Penn grads who have started companies. He made the opening remarks of the dinner in Chinese!
The dinner included a fireside chat with this year's Penn Wharton China Entrepreneur Award recipient, Robert Zou. He started a dental company called Arrail Group Ltd. I remember how he said that an MBA isn't necessary to start a company, but if he hadn't gone to Wharton for his MBA, he wouldn't have considered being an entrepreneur. He also mentioned how entrepreneurs do have to be willing to take risks. I found it interesting that although he doesn't have any medical-related degree, he was able to found a nationwide dental group and eventually serve as an Overseer of UPenn's Dental School. It makes me feel more confident as a future business grad to pursue areas/topics that I really care about but don't necessarily have formal study on.
I enjoyed talking to the alumni at my dinner table - I met someone who started his own VC firm in SF (he comes back to China relatively often because some investors are in China), someone who moved to China 8 years ago with her husband and children because they wanted a change, and a bioengineering grad who works in VC and mentioned one of Penn's 1st year dorms, KCECH I even got to meet briefly meet the person who interviewed me during the Wharton admission process 2 years ago. We happened to be in Beijing at the same time, and I was so happy about this coincidence! I was also happy that my Wharton friend stuck with me the whole time - it's great to have a companion at these kinds of events.
The dinner itself was satisfying, with many dishes from different parts of China and cute, yummy dessert. (I expected it to be amazing given I paid $50 for the dinner ticket! At my canteen, I can get a huge meal for ~$2.)
When leaving the fancy finance building in which the PWCC office was located, I felt great that I took initiative to find out about the event and to have gotten a great experience. I also felt like I could get better at talking to strangers a.k.a. networking. Well, guess I'll practice the next time I need to network, which is probably extremely soon given I'm a Penn student...haha...