Business buzz of Shenzhen spurs talents

I was at Huawei in Shenzhen during the years that the telecom giant became a true global powerhouse. I worked with the leadership team at Huawei to support the company's content and messaging overseas. I also supported Huawei University in numerous training programs, including in cross-cultural management, cross-cultural environmental, social and governance programs, as well as Huawei's flagship corporate social responsibility program, Seeds for the Future.

At Huawei, I was in the heart of the Shenzhen bustle. The city's entrepreneurial buzz, passion for innovation, and business-first mindset struck a chord within me. I fell in love with the city's fast pace; the famous "Shenzhen speed".

When you come to Shenzhen, you become a "Shenzhen-er". Almost everyone in Shenzhen is from somewhere else — people come here to turn their dreams into reality. Everyone you talk to has a plan, an ambition, and wants to do something great with their lives. And just as many people have failed in that pursuit, once, twice, some many times. But they seem to never give up. In Shenzhen, you work day and night, you get up every time you fall, until you make it, until you succeed.

This is a city that was built for business and it continues to deliver. From its origins as a fishing village to a planned factory town to its business boom in the 1990s, it's now a global center of trade, finance, production, and innovation. The Shenzhen speed accomplished all of this in just a few decades.

Nearly every imaginable global industry now has companies working in Shenzhen to try and make it big. My former employer Huawei is a global telecom giant born in this city and now has annual revenue of 642 billion yuan ($87.71 billion). Tencent, too, grew from scratch in the city to become a global internet giant with its annual revenue exceeding 550 billion yuan.

BYD is another example of a company that grew up here from an economy car company to a global leader in electric vehicles and one of the biggest EV battery makers in the world.

Another representative of the city's new hip consumer tech companies is DJI. It has been supplying the drones, stabilizers, other video filming hardware accessories that are powering the global economy.

On the United States' premier e-marketplace Amazon, a deeper look into many of the bestselling products reveals a huge number of these sellers are from Shenzhen. At the many conferences and trade shows I frequent in the US, a glance in the "S" section on the exhibitors' list reveals a staggering number of company names starting with Shenzhen.

While I completed my MBA at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, almost all my classmates were from or were based in Shenzhen. This is a huge network of ambitious, smart and exceptionally talented and driven individuals who are continuing to drive forward Shenzhen's future entrepreneurial growth.

And like so many people who inspired me in Shenzhen, I also started my own company later, in 2020, working tirelessly to shape it into a business that helps Chinese companies expand in the North American market. In an era of conflict, disagreements and disengagements, I hope this business can be a force for bridge-building and engagement between China and the rest of the world.

Shenzhen represents the entrepreneurial spirit. It represents China, and it also represents the world. It represents diversity, openness, ambition and hard work. Shenzhen is a place that offers opportunities to people who are bold, brave, work hard and never give up.

If you want to achieve something big in life, Shenzhen is one of the best places in the world to be.

The author is the founder and CEO of the North American Ecosystem Institute, a communications and business consulting group that helps clients position themselves effectively as engaged and valuable ecosystem participants in North America.

The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.