We are proud to welcome Lingyi Kong as our speaker at this quarterly’s Innovation 2022: China & SEA Startup Ecosystems — Decrypted!

Innovation (Powered by Sinofy) is an immersive series of talks exploring technology and business in the APAC region. Powered by Sinofy Group, Innovation is assembling some of the greatest minds of freelancers, startup founders, and multinational company executives. Speakers from all over the globe will dive into conversations on the current technology and business trends, VCs, legal landscapes, and more. Discussions will help shape your understanding of Asian technology and business environments, as well as help foresee the opportunities within the region.

With her outstanding expertise and knowledge, we are delighted to welcome Lingyi Kong on board. Previously spending 4 years at a London-based boutique search firm specializing in alternative investments and assets management in markets across Europe and Asia, Lingyi is now a VP at Execuzen. Within Execuzen, Lingyi looks after fast-growing global digital assets markets and also contributes her extensive knowledge and network to Asia markets across VC, PE, placement agents as well as our long-standing hedge funds clients.

Lingyi began her journey at the Central University of Finance and Economics where she achieved a BSc in Finance and Banking. She also holds an MA in International Media Studies from the University of Ulster. Additionally, she is a native Mandarin speaker.

Lingyi will explore “Recruiting with Fintech Startups” in China in this installment of Innovation.

But first, we managed to ask her a few questions to get a preview for the insights we’ll hear at Innovation.

What would you say is the biggest challenge for Western founders/entrepreneurs when they try to recruit Chinese talents?

If the startup business is rich in capital injection, hiring top-tier background tech gurus or sales leads can be very challenging. The reason for this is less compensation-related but more to the different opinions in understanding and perceptions to the firm’s products and clients markets. Sometimes those opinions may be too stretched from those who grew from Tencent or Alibaba factories or domestic ninjas.

As a third party recruiter, the process of debriefing a role with a client is a process of understand their thought process of the firm’s next stage, the strength they have acquired so far and gaps to the market they are facing, the hiring process can be quite time consuming for top tech and sales leaders as most of the time we are examining the business’ ambition and reality with the candidates and see if there is a good ground for him/her to fill the gap and drive growth.

What should a western company have to offer to attract and maintain Chinese tech talents?

Generally speaking, pay is one of the advantages in some of the fintech firms I worked with and most of the western startups are more creative in welfare and benefit as well as incentive activities.

It was never easy to maintain talents in startups in the market, key factors include ego/style of the founders, product quality and shared value systems. Lives of startup founders are never easy, so many things they need to take into account and it is common that they have less attention on how to manage their team’s bonding directly. By saying this, firms with high turnover does not mean they do not win the market, low turnover startups sometimes can easily be killed in a super creative industry. Hence a strong product with constant innovative business models would be a core factor of maintaining a strong tech team and growing their own internal brands and competitiveness. For those businesses that are struggling to win the market, a more transparent shared value system can be useful.

When expanding your business to China and setting up a local team, does the location matter?

Location matters indeed to asset-light industry, this is co-related to factors such as lifestyle, talents markets, regulatory bonding, capital raising strategies etc,. The Greater Bay Area, Shenzhen for example, is a haven of young entrepreneurs and SMEs with many government approved tax reduction and welfare benefits. Shanghai and surrounding regions are still the core tech guru farmland based on the nature of government support, resourceful capital and centres of excellence from Tencent and Alibaba, as well as living style and multi-layered culture and living style. Beijing is of course a ground closer to central government controlled industries, banks, insurers related fintech firms. RMB capital raising activities from institutional investors are mostly initiated in Beijing.

How is the concept of “guanxi” (relationships) important when trying to attract Chinese investors?

Guanxi is not just limited to China. In capital markets nowadays, liquidity is tighter where people find non-profitable Guanxi less useful. Chinese investors are more cautious and sophisticated when they are considering investment opportunities. RMB investors are constantly seeking flexible capital injections and exiting plans, hence capital raising activities will be more short-terms and unpredictable. UDS investors are somehow more institutional investors who are seeking mid-long term returns in China. Hence bonding with more sustainable and western-linked businesses is more appealing on deal selecting. Nonetheless, projects or target firms have to be good quality investment targets and a good guanxi will be a nice layer of fruits in between for a more tasty and trustworthy deal.

Lingyi’s incredible amount of knowledge for Asian market recruitment is true testament to her knowledge and insights she will provide. We hope you can join us for China & SEA Startup Ecosystems— Decrypted on January 17th at 11AM GMT.

**Attendance is free**

Register here: https://forms.gle/XG1s6yzAYzGejbdW7

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