Ten years ago, inspired by China’s increasingly defining role in global business, I believed the time had come to create a China-rooted strategy and management consulting firm with a global vision and capabilities. So, on April 1st, 2014, after having spent more than 20 years at McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, and Booz Allen Hamilton (later Booz & Company), I founded Gao Feng Advisory Company.

It Takes Ten Years to Make a Sword

On a beautiful evening in Shanghai on April 18th, Gao Feng Advisory Company held its 10th anniversary celebration dinner. As a Chinese saying goes, “It takes ten years to make a sword (十年磨一剑).” Over the last 10 years, Gao Feng has experienced significant growth and has gained the support from many clients. However, because of the nature of consulting, I think we are still a start-up. Consulting is a profession, not a business. It takes patience, focus and the acceptance of some occasional loneliness to make it work.

We are now ready to enter a new phase in which we will begin to institutionalize our firm.

BCG’s founding partner in China and one of BCG’s consultants who worked directly with the firm’s legendary founder Bruce Henderson in its inaugural office in Boston, Bob Ching, gave a talk at our dinner on “Consulting as a Profession.” Bob, who hired me into BCG some 30 years ago, carries with him the quality of wisdom. Over the years, I learned a great deal from Bob. His speech at our evening gathering was no exception. Bob recounted many of the lessons he learned from Bruce Henderson and Bob’s own unique way of understanding consulting. As usual, Bob drew upon ancient Chinese wisdom but he also built on the latest insights from both the West and the East

In addition to Bob, my former Booz partner in China, Ron Haddock, and Gao Feng's first client, Reckitt's retired Global COO, Aditya Sehgal, also shared their thoughts and observations with us via video conference.

Ron and l relaunched Booz Allen's China practice back in 2003. This was an exceptional period during which we experienced exponential growth and, as a result, we quickly achieved a preeminent position in China’s competitive management consulting market. Ron recounted our entrepreneurship, client and people strategy, as well as our thought leadership approach.

Adi led the incredible growth of Reckitt in China - which was only a small business back in the late 2000s -to become the world's second-largest in just one decade prior to Adi's retirement from Reckitt at the end of the 2010s. Adi proved that Western multinational corporations could quickly become very successful in China. During our dinner, Adi shared with us his view on how to make China work for Western businesses. He highlighted in particular the need to create win-win situations with your partners, and a human centered approach. And he noted that the ability to articulate the China reality to the global headquarters is also essential for achieving success in China.

Opportunities Provided by the Times

I have benefited a great deal from teachers like Bob. And I have also benefited a great deal from my clients like Adi Sehgal and many others over the years. I felt our relationships have been symbiotic. I have also benefited a great deal from my colleagues like Ron and others as well as my teams. I call my teams, “The Three Golden Generations of China.” (BCG, Booz and Gao Feng) Through three different generations, I personally witnessed how young Chinese strived to learn, develop and become qualified professionals in their own rights. I have benefited from all of my friends and, not least, my family.

We were extremely fortunate that we have lived through and are still living through an extremely interesting period of humanity during which we have witnessed the incredible growth and transformation of China as well as the huge changes in the rest of the world. The times give us the opportunity. We are there to receive and make good use of the opportunities.

As our client, partner, and friend, Mukesh Sharma of Tech Mahindra reflected on his experience during our 10th anniversary dinner, "Last night, I was in one of the most illustrious groups with CEOs and Chairmen of MNCs in China, listening to the wisdom of very, very senior folks (a lot of white hair!) about business. The three key takeaways, although they may sound esoteric are, firstly, you are a human and need to have a heart; secondly, at the core there have to be specific impacts you are making on society, and it doesn't matter what business you are in, and finally, it’s not all about success, it’s about the memories you create with people around you!”

Mukesh is in his usual way very perceptive. Perhaps the biggest and most memorable moment of the entire evening was, for me, when Bob Ching spoke about “Mencius' Four Hearts” (the heart of compassion, the sense of shame and disdain for evil, the grace of humility and respect, and the wisdom to discern right from wrong). And, he said, in his typical quiet and understated yet deeply powerful way, “Ed has the heart.”

Thank you, Bob.

Braving the Wind and Waves

Some people say that the consulting industry has no future and, as proof they often point to the fact that many consulting firms are downsizing. Well, I have a different point of view. l believe that many consulting firms face problems because they have not remained faithful to the core of what they should do nor what they do best. Instead, they have expanded their businesses into areas that are not necessarily relevant nor essential to the core of consulting as a profession. They have not put their clients’ interests ahead of their own.

In China, many consulting firms have not upheld the quality that clients expect and consultants deserve. Values often are in shortage. Many consulting firms in the spirit of making some quick bucks did not choose their clients carefully. In a quickly evolving and large market like China, inevitably there is a wide range of the quality of clients. What consulting firms can or cannot do with their clients is very much dependent on the quality of the clients as well.

In Gao Feng’s case, we would stick with the originality of the management consulting practice that McKinsey’s foundational leader Marvin Bower, and BCG’s founder Bruce Henderson started and insisted on. Teachers like Bob Ching continue to enlighten us on how to think and what to do (and what not to do). We believe that in an increasingly fast-changing and complicated environment, clients’ need for high-quality consulting assistance will only go up, not down.

As we say in Chinese, 长风破浪，未来可期 (Braving the wind and waves, the future is promising). I think this best describes the feeling of all of us at Gao Feng and all of the people who care about Gao Feng.