Let the Kellogg-HKUST online network help you navigate these troubled times
Let the Kellogg-HKUST online network help you navigate these troubled times
When confronted with COVID-19, we have no playbook to fall back on. T he support, shared wisdom and sense of community offered by the Kellogg-HKUST(KH) EMBA network is hence more valuable than ever.
With social distancing policies and travel bans enacted, Kellogg-HKUST has moved a whole range of events and initiatives online to keep alumni connected, and provide advice and strategies for navigating the crisis.
These events are grouped into three categories. In the KH Alumni Business Card (ABC) Series, industry leaders are invited to share their experience on specific topics. The KH Connects initiative enables KHers to network on a geographical and industrial basis. KH professors have also presented masterclass on thought-provoking and highly-relevant topics.
The Kellogg-HKUST network is connected even closer than ever before via various online events.
Within a month, Kellogg-HKUST has organized 35 events, including 4 ABCs, 20 KH Connects and 11 masterclasses. In some occasions, the team has picked up the pace to stream two or even three Zoom calls a day.
The latest ABC episode featured two alumni from the Class of 2008, who shared their thoughts on the type of resilient leadership that can enable organizations to emerge stronger into the post-pandemic world.
Peter Zhang, Aon Consulting’s Senior Partner and CEO, Greater China, explained that his business established three guiding principles for steering a course through these troubled times. “The first is that revenue is not important – employees’ health is number one.”
KH Alumni Business Series – Resilient Leadership, featuring KH alumni, Angela Dong, Global Vice President and General Manager, Greater China at Nike and Peter Zhang, Senior Partner and CEO, Greater China at Aon Consulting, and moderated by Samantha Law, General Manager of Hong Kong & Taiwan at Converse
The second was the importance of successfully shifting – from a client’s perspective – the balance between offline and online ways of working. And finally, embrace financial flexibility. An example is the leadership team waiving their remuneration increases.
Angela Dong, Nike’s Global VP and GM of Greater China, said her team developed an operational manual to guide them during the pandemic. This guide broke the crisis down into four phases: outbreak and containment; recovery; normalization; and growth. In the first phase, the priority was to look after colleagues, partners and consumers. She noted the recovery stage might go through several iterations, due to the uncertainties around the virus control. “But throughout the entire process we’ve got to remember we will be back to growth in the future.”
It is critical, at a time like this, that leaders are present and available, Angela said. Leaders should simply priorities, be prepared to admit when they’re wrong, and create a safe environment for the team to take risks. Next on her checklist is swift decision-making. “I would rather be quickly, roughly correct than precisely wrong.”
KH Connects has so far connected alumni all the way from Spain, France, the US, to Australia, Russia and Japan. Though face-to-face meetings can have a unique value, the effects of the pandemic are making everyone more comfortable with online get-togethers, and this trend is likely to outlast the current crisis. Many more Zoom calls are in the works, the Kellogg-HKUST team is planning to have more industry-specific calls for alumni to connect and exchange business know-hows.
Among the academic masterclasses already held, alumni and participants have enjoyed an examination of new ways of managing talent presented by Professor James Root, Partner with Bain & Company, and an explanation of how getting inside the mind of customers helps in the design of effective marketing tactics, shared by the program’s Academic Director, Professor Jaideep Sengupta.
An academic seminar conducted by Prof. Karl Schmedders
The range of KH initiatives will continue to expand, with class reunions on Zoom coming up next.
