I am a senior operations manager at Walland, a Chinese e-commerce company that specializes in women’s fashion products. Walland has multiple brands with products that range from luxury wigs to wedding dresses and invitations, and their brands cater to mostly the European and American markets. I primarily work with the RPGShow luxury hair brand. In my role, in addition to strategic planning, I organize and prepare logistics for our offline events in Europe and the United States. These events include mini offline locations, where we partner with local hairstylists to display our products, and larger pop-up shops in places like London, New York, and Los Angeles. I also manage communication and relations with overseas partners and clients abroad. I speak with our brand ambassador, models, celebrity stylists, and regular hairstylists when issues come up. In addition to planning and communication, I provide support for miscellaneous tasks with brands throughout the company and assist with designing the webpage for our offline events.
How did your time in China and experience at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center lead you to this position?
My interest in China started from wanting to choose a language that seemed fun and difficult at the same time. As I learned Chinese, I realized how interesting the region was, and my interest grew. I ended up studying abroad in China during undergrad. My undergraduate major was business management and international business, but I always had an interest in international relations and politics. I discovered the opportunity to study international politics at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center when I was living in Atlanta after graduation. So, I went for it. While at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, a friend in Nanjing shared with me an internship opportunity at Walland after I told her that I was interested in business. I received the summer internship, and they later offered me a full-time position. At first, because I was the only native English speaker in the company, I started with proofreading and editing documents. Over time, I became more proactive about making improvements to the company’s websites, communication style, and business ideas. As they saw that I was contributing to the company, they gave me more responsibilities.
What was one of your most memorable Hopkins-Nanjing Center moments that you still think about?
The week we had the dragon boat competition and dragon boat cheer squad was very fun. That was just a really fun day of cheering on our classmates and being around other Nanjing students at Xuanwu Lake. Academically, my favorite memory was the rural development trip to Anhui province with Professor Adam Webb’s class. He took students out to a rural city to help us better understand rural development in China. Each student in his class picked a thesis topic for his or her final paper and research this topic while on the trip. My topic was about education and how it helps or fails Chinese children in the rural areas. I still think about the children and the people that I met on that trip. It was a little emotional for me.
How do the skills you learned from the Hopkins-Nanjing Center help you in your current position?
At the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, I learned how to appreciate diversity in thought because there were people who thought differently from me. I learned how to engage and work with people even if I didn’t fully agree with them. I also loved attending classes and working with my Chinese classmates. That prepared me for working in an all-Chinese work environment because I learned how to manage the cultural and communication differences between people who are not from the same region in China. So when I started working at my company, I was already familiar with general Chinese cultural mannerisms. My office is much more delicate with managing conflict and everyone is careful about expressing distaste for someone else’s work in front of everybody. Living with my Chinese roommate and interacting with my Chinese classmates at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center prepared me for this work environment. Also, I learned a lot of practical skills from the Hopkins-Nanjing Center’s career services programming. By working with the career counselor, I was able to develop my career plans and receive more clarity about my options. Every time there was a lecture on topics such as LinkedIn and interview skills, I would attend. I still use some of those skills today. My experience with career services was invaluable.
What advice would you give to current or future Hopkins-Nanjing Center students?
Be open to your life switching directions. I could have easily decided to do the internship for three months and go back home, which was my original plan. But, I realized that there was value in staying in China. Be open to making your own journey. I had to create my role and responsibilities during that first year at Walland. They were not sure what they could ask me to do and what they couldn’t ask me to do. I could have waited for them, but instead I started creating tasks for myself by volunteering for different projects and helping my coworkers. When they liked the outcome of my work, they gave me the responsibility of completing that project. Had I not been proactive, and had I not had a boss who was open to the responsibilities I wanted to take on, the opportunities I have now wouldn’t have come to me. My advice is to be very proactive and shape your journey. It really is what you decide it to be.
What advice would you give to Hopkins-Nanjing Center students who want to work in the e-commerce industry or business in China?
E-commerce is a fast and competitive industry in China, so companies have to be extremely quick to react to new trends in the beauty and fashion industry. What fascinates me about my company’s brand RPGShow is that they have gotten adept to selling a product that they themselves don’t use. They sell natural hair products and wigs and have become one of the top companies that sell these products in the United States. They don’t even use these products in China, but they have found a way to quickly adapt to the preferences of international customers. What a customer wants is fickle because it depends on fashion and entertainment trends. When Walland sees a trend, they have to predict that it’s coming and be the first to get their product out there to sell it. The ability to think quickly and react to these trends is essential for this industry in China.
As for business, try to gain work experience while you’re at Hopkins-Nanjing Center. Be open to different ways of handling and doing things in the work environment. If you come to China with a mindset of “I’ve always did it this way so I’m going to do it this way,” you’ll have a hard time. It’s sounds so clichéd but I never realized how true these things are until I actually started experiencing them. Be open to new ideas and consider opportunities that you may not have considered before.
Written By Tarela Osuobeni Hopkins-Nanjing Center Certificate’ 17, SAIS MA’19