EMBA travel diaries – Hong Kong

Written by EMBA Turku participant Jarkko Vuorikoski,
First Vice President, Danske Bank

International Study Week in CUHK Business School

Overall a study week in a location like Hong Kong with a rich culture and history exceeded my expectations. Everything was well planned and organized in CUHK Business School.  The programme consisted of very practical and insightful lectures with some of the professors having enormous business experience combined with their academic records. Real life study cases were introduced by lecturers who actually had been in the centre of these business challenges. The corporate visits in Shenzen were very relevant and added depth to the classes. Yantian container terminal is a colossal operation that really can create a perspective. Salcomp factory certainly gave more understanding about the factory production in China.

The whole staff from professor to support staff were extremely friendly and pleasant and I would be happy to meet them again. The programme designed had a perfect balance of proper sessions that gave so much insight to the culture and society in China and outside of the campus activities diving deeper into the culture and life in Hong Kong. All activities from welcoming lunch, sightseeing and especially the gallop race in Happy Valley were memorable moments of this great study week. Not to forget my first ever Kung Fu lesson (or Choy Lee Fut) by the very sympathetic Master Wong. Peter Yam, Kenneth Tse and Stephen Frost gave world-class lectures and really changed my thinking about China also explaining the background and history.

The most important learnings for me were that China will be a huge business opportunity for anyone in any business, but to get there you need to start from creating the network and ‘guanxi’. All in all it was an absolutely great foreign study week that I will never forget.