From: Greater China Club
Date: February 21, 2018
Subject: Greater China Club 2018-2019 Leadership Election



Dear First_Name,

Please Vote for GCC 2018-2019 Leaders!

As you all know, we called for GCC 2018 - 2019 leadership application 2 weeks ago and are happy to announce that six first-year GCCers have applied. Now it's your time to decide who will run the club next year! 

Next year, we have four seats for GCC Co-Chairs. We need all of you to vote for the candidates (maximum 4) that you support! First years, please vote because the new leadership team will bring much joy and excitement to your life at SOM next year. MAMs and second years, your votes are just as important because we hope the new leaders can not only manage relationships in their own class but also bring both classes and two programs together to make GCC a truly close-knit community at SOM and across Yale campus. 

Below are the introduction and election statements from our six candidates. The link to vote is at the bottom of this email. Voting is open now till next Mon 11:59PM 2/26. Results will be announced shortly after.

PLEASE VOTE!
Look forward to your participation! The future of the club is just within a click. :)

Sincerely,
Jill, Nan, Ouwen, Sunny

-------------------------------
CANDIDATES
(alphabetical order by candidate's first name)

 

Alina Xueqing Zhao
 

My contributions to the club and community in the past year
I co-led the winter China job trek, for which I expanded the company coverage to include more tech and startups. On top of the expansion on companies, I also coordinated most of the logistics in Beijing. The trip was very well received by the participants. In the fall, I also initiated a China-Taiwan talk with Inclusion office and Greater China club to foster conversations between the involved parties but also with the broader Yale community. Informally, I enjoyed helping the GCC-hosted closing bells and promoting to the community about these events.

Statement of interests
I want to be part of the GCC leadership to promote Chinese culture to and help the Chinese community better engage with the broader SOM community. Having been involved with Student Life and Inclusion office, I believe I can help GCC partner with other groups on campus. I would also love to serve as a sounding board for the Chinese community and leverage my prior experience living in the US, either from career or social perspective. By committing to the leadership role, I look forward to building meaningful relationship with the students on campus and with alumni in China.

My plan for GCC 2018-2019
I have a few specific goals to achieve if I am selected. First, I want to further expand the career development for Greater China. Having led the China job trek this year, I have vision to expand the trek to cover Shenzhen next year, after talking to our alum Xiong Hao. In addition, I would like to strengthen our relationship with CDO to help students on both coaching and job searching. Second, I think there's a lot of opportunities for fellow students from Greater China to be more involved with the SOM community. If I am selected, I would listen to the club's need, encourage more mixers with other affinity groups, and further publicize GCC-led events to the bigger SOM community. In addition, I have a vision to develop a more structured program on cultural emersion and career exploration to help students who move to the US for the first time. Third, US-China Forum is a great opportunity for SOM to learn about China and to extend our impact on campus. Though I haven't been the core leadership of the Forum, I would love to join and make the US-China Forum even better in the coming year.

 

 

Clive YE Xi

 

My contributions to the club and community in the past year
In the first week of orientation, I organized a dinner for 60 first year MBA and MAM students to meet each other. During the semester, I was involved in organizing the Autumn Festival and Chines New Year Closing Bell to promote Chinese culture to the SOM community, and also stood at GCC booth during the welcome weekend speaking to the incoming students. In addition, I will take charge of the logistics in the Yale US-China Forum.

Statement of interests
The leadership role in GCC provides a unique opportunity for me to contribute back to the community. I have benefited a lot from the Chinese community starting from the application to campus visit, and later to study in SOM, I would like to pay it forward and to help new Chinese students make the transitions smoothly to the SOM life.
Moreover, there are so many latest developments happening in China. I see the leadership role as a natural promoter to introduce China related topics to the broader SOM community.

My plan for GCC 2018-2019
The theme of my plan for the next year is "connections" and it consists of three pillars:

1. Early connections with incoming students
I believe there are many opportunities to connect with new students before June. Once students arrive on campus, they will be so occupied with a flurry of activities and it is difficult to compete for their attention. I am proposing several installments of webinars from April to June covering living in new haven, campus life/academics and recruitment to engage with the new students early.

2. Closer connections with GCC alumni
I will work with CDO to build better connections with GCC alumni. For example, a lot of alumni might have internship or full-time opportunities in their organizations. I would like to come up with a system to collect all these job opportunities at the beginning of each year for Chinese students. In the same system, we can ask for alumni's travel plan to the US and whether they will be able to visit SOM for a talk.

3. More connections with prospective students
I would like to regularly post MBA/MAM stories (e.g. statistics and stories about admitted Chinese students) through different media channels such as Yale-Beijing Centre, Yale SOM to promote SOM and to reach out to more prospective students back in China.


 

Jake Luo

 

My contributions to the club and community in the past year
I participated in multiple student club offerings held by GCC this past year and have constantly striven to be a vibrant part of the GCC community in many speaker series and events. I also actively helped with planning two Closing Bells this year to spread our culture and heritage across SOM at large. I have also tried to be a voice for the Chinese community at large, and served as a panelist at the most recent Ask Me Anything Panel: East Asia series. It is sufficient to say that GCC embodies the entire Greater China community, and within that a highly diverse set of demographics and cultural backgrounds. It is important to recognize that, and I am proud to say that I have built personal relationships with many of my peers from each and every one of these backgrounds.

Statement of interests
I am interested in giving back to a community that benefited me tremendously over the last year. I hope to further hone my leadership abilities in an environment that maneuvers geopolitical, cultural and language barriers, and this position presents just that platform. I believe that my diverse background provides me a high degree of versatility to be comfortable and confident in this role and continue GCC’s mission of spreading awareness, presence and helping its members as an integral part of the SOM community.

My plan for GCC 2018-2019
I plan to advocate mainly two platforms:
From a cultural perspective, I want to increase GCC’s presence, a continuing mission from last year, as an integral part of the SOM community. I hope to further increase the diversity of involvement from GCC members of all backgrounds, such as those with Taiwanese and Hong Kong heritage as such as Asian Americans, as I believe diversity of inputs is integral to quality.
Secondly, I plan to set up more formalized mentorship and accountability process for 1st year internship recruitment. I want to further increase GCC leadership involvement in planning the China job trek, so that students attending the trek have opportunities to land internships on the trek. I also plan to work closely with the Finance Club as well as CDO to extend some recruitment offerings and workshops that are specifically tailored to those recruiting in Greater China. This will better prepare future GCC members for internship and full-time recruitment both in North America as well as Greater China.

 

 

Leo Chen

 

My contributions to the club and community in the past year
I have coordinated the host of Mid-Autumn closing bell, co-organized the China Job Trek and am acting as the marketing committee leader for the US-China Forum.

Statement of interests
Out of this role, I hope to improve my coordination skills and build deeper connections with colleagues in this community. Over the past few months I’ve been actively participating various activities organized by GCC and found myself passionate about serving the community. At the same time, my past experiences in Singapore, which is a mix of both Western and traditional Chinese cultures, allows me to be a good bridge between Chinese students and the rest of SOM community.

My plan for GCC 2018-2019
Overall I don't plan to have big changes given the already fantastic offerings from GCC as well as MBA's busy schedule.

Besides continuing the existing activities, e.g. buddy pairing, China/HK Job Trek, etc, I would suggest adding the following two:
Social: Small group dinner, BYOS(tory), to foster deeper communications.
Career: Consolidate job opportunities which are currently based on person-to-person communication and via WeChat posts, which can be easily missed or lost.

 

 

Olivia Shen

 

My contributions to the club and community in the past year
For GCC, I have helped organize two closing bells - Mid-Autumn Festival and Chinese New Year. I also stood at GCC table during the welcome weekend and hosted a visiting new admits from China. I have maintained conversations with the new admits after the welcome weekend (I am in their WeChat group). Currently, I am a member of the organizing committee for the coming Yale US-China Forum, working under the speaker team.

For the Chinese community here, I have been taking initiatives to organize gatherings and events. For example, I invited 16 classmates to watch The Book of Mormon in New Haven.

For the greater Yale campus, I was invited by the Office of Career Strategy to give a 1.5-hr seminar on financial statement analysis to graduate students interested in the finance profession, with over 50% of the audience being Chinese students.

Statement of interests
For me, what motivates me to apply for a leadership role with GCC are the enhanced opportunities and responsibilities to promote cultural integration, connect SOM with the Greater China region and strengthen the ties and connections within the Chinese community in both SOM and Yale, and across different US business schools.

The way that I can add the most value is relationship building and event execution. I am responsible, easygoing, and work well with teams.

What I hope to get from this role – friendship, connections, and memorable experiences that I can share with my grandchildren.

My plan for GCC 2018-2019
GCC has been organizing amazing events in the past year. On top of what we have been doing in the past, I believe in the coming year, more efforts should be made on the below aspects:

1. Career opportunities
Given the recent change in CDO, I think GCC should take more responsibilities in promoting career opportunities within the Greater China Region. We need to have regular conversations with the new designated CDO officers to make sure our interests are being taken care of, and I plan to create a real-time summary of job postings to help our members better manage their recruitment process.

2. Increase the participation of non-Chinese classmates in our events
I believe one of the key objectives of the club is to provide opportunities for the SOM and Yale community to understand different aspects of China. To increase the participation of non-Chinese classmates in our events, we can do a survey to gauge interests in different topics at the beginning of the year (e.g. the club fair after the orientation week), promote our events heavily on campus (e.g. restrooms) with eye-catching headlines (e.g. linkage to courses taught at SOM or recent news), and co-organize events with other clubs (e.g. Arts and Culture, Economic Development, etc).

 

 

Yuhuan Zhou

 

My contributions to the club and community in the past year
I participated in the organization of the closing bell event at the beginning of the first year and took charge of the game activities.
I organized the China job trek during the spring festival and was responsible for the company visits in Shanghai.

Statement of interests
I am interested in expanding the job opportunities in China for students who want to work in China. Since Catherine has left SOM, GCC needs to take more responsibility to help Chinese students find the career resources in China and maintain the existing employer relationships. I want to help Chinese students to connect with more companies in China.

My plan for GCC 2018-2019
1. I plan to lead the job trek with first-year students together next year. I want to share my experiences to make the trek more efficient.
2. I intend to collaborate with the Chinese clubs at other schools to enhance communication of job opportunities and entertainment events. Some companies in China are very open to all MBA students at top bschools but only have limited contacts in a few international schools. Information sharing will expand our opportunities, even though it also seems to increase the competition.


 

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