Hi Everyone,

After a lot of great events in Shanghai, I headed to Beijing for two days. I was fortunate to have Julie join me (her first trip to China). Our good friend Helen He took us to the Great Wall and also to the Forbidden City in Beijing.

You really have to see the Great Wall to believe it….the wall is more than 13,000 miles long and literally goes up and down the mountains as shown below.

 

Walking around the Forbidden City is a walk through history. Built more than 600 years ago, beginning in 1406, it consists of 980 buildings and covers 180 acres!

I then headed to Hong Kong where I had a wonderful dinner with Kellogg HKUST alums.

It is fantastic to hear about the different leadership roles the alums are involved in, from running financial institutions to entrepreneurial start-ups.

I then had the opportunity to engage in one of my very favorite activities: Teaching in the Kellogg HKUST executive MBA program. This is the fourth year I have taught in the program, which, by the way, is rated by the Financial Times as the #1 executive MBA program in the world! And here’s the picture in the HKUST lobby to prove it 🤩

My class is entitled “Leading a Global Company” and the KH20 students were a fantastic group from more than 15 countries. We were able to include in our classes great discussions on our role and purpose as global values-based leaders and what should be expected from us. As I always remind Kellogg folks, “If we are not ‘those guys’, then who is??!!” 😉

Since timing is everything, I did have many questions in one-on-one meetings regarding “What are you Americans trying to accomplish with these crazy tariffs?” I will provide some “opinions” on this very good question in a post I will write on the plane ride back to Chicago tomorrow.