Stanley Chao

Stanley is a Chinese American and son of Chinese immigrants who escaped from the Communist takeover of China in 1949. He grew up in a very traditional Chinese family: living with 3 generations under one roof, speaking only Chinese until grade school, learning that anything less than an A grade was unacceptable, and that working hard was the only way to get ahead in life.

Stanley holds a BSEE degree from Columbia University, an MSEE from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Business. His professional career includes stints at Philips Lighting in California, and China; Kingston Technology in California and Japan; Softbank in Japan; and Merrill Lynch in New York and Japan.

Chao currently works at All In Consulting, a Los Angeles based consulting firm assisting Western companies in their Asia and China business developments. Some of Chao's clients include: Intel, Emerson Electric, SPX, Kingston Technology, Baxter Healthcare, and dozens of small- and medium-size companies. Chao specializes in the following industries: aviation, automotive, medical, information technology, factory-related equipment, and oil/gas.

"Selling to China" is based on Chao's twenty years experience working and living in China. Early in his career, he learned how the big companies did things in China: taking 5-10 years to develop China's market, sending hundreds of expatriates to China, wooing Chinese government officials, forming unmanageable joint ventures, and investing millions (if not billions) of dollars before seeing any returns. In the early 2000's as China's economy was becoming more capitalistic, Chao saw opportunities for smaller companies, who were more innovative and quicker to market, to enter China's booming consumer and industrial markets, but they had to devise a different strategy than the multinationals who had more money, time and manpower.

This is where "Selling to China" comes into play. The book's lessons and anecdotes are all catered to small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) wanting to break into China. The conventional wisdom that only large corporations can do business in China is a thing of the past. Smaller companies today enjoy the same opportunities in China once granted to only large, multinational conglomerates. Chao's book will put SMBs on the same playing field as the big boys and will help businesses: learn effective ways to deal with Chinese businesspeople, deal with Chinese private and state-owned companies, analyze whether certain products are viable for the Chinese market, understand the psyche of the "Mao Generation" Chinese who are now China's business owners, executives, and government leaders, help answer the four major questions on whether a Western company can enter China, and develop low-cost, market-entry strategies.

In short, "Selling to China" summarizes Chao's twenty years of living and working in China and gives Western SMBs a proper and realistic view on how to enter China's booming economy. More importantly, it discusses how to determine whether certain products should even be introduced to China. The book is not written by a journalist, or based on interviews. Rather, it is based on a Chinese American who understands both Western and Chinese cultures and has personally been through the ups and downs in China.