Han Ying’s resume

From shepherd to CEO

Under the aura of "Asia's No. 1 CFO", her bumpy teenage years were intentionally or unintentionally formatted by the media...

At the age of 15, Han Ying, like many of her peers, did not escape the fate of going to the mountains and countryside. She left Beijing alone and came to Bei'an, a small town in Heilongjiang, to join the Northeast Construction Corps. She stayed in Beidahuang. 6 years. In these six years, Han Ying has done all kinds of dirty and tiring work: herding sheep, cooking, clearing land, and moving bricks. Once, while grazing sheep by the river, a sheep fell into the river. The river water in early spring was freezing cold, but in order to avoid being scolded when she returned, Han Ying jumped into the river and dragged the sheep ashore, but she almost lost her life.

At the age of 21, the "Cultural Revolution" was over. Han Ying recruited workers and returned to the city, and worked as a repairman in a car factory affiliated with the Bohai Branch of Tianjin Tanggu Offshore Oil Corporation. At the age of 22, Han Ying was selected into the company as an outstanding young worker and started working as an accountant. Han Ying's mother is an accountant for a large state-owned enterprise. Influenced by her mother, working as an accountant has always been Han Ying's wish. During this period, Han Ying held a semiconductor radio and completed elementary and intermediate English teaching courses by following the English teaching program of China National Radio.

At the age of 25, the head office selected accountants who knew English, and Han Ying once again entered the financial department of Offshore Oil Corporation based on her strength.

Compiled "English-Chinese Accounting Dictionary" Just like when she studied English hard, 25-year-old Han Ying once again made a keen judgment on the trend of social development. At that time, Han Ying was using Soviet accounting in her work and study, but she already instinctively realized the importance of Western accounting in China's future.

In 1982, China's first Western accounting major was opened at Xiamen University, and 27-year-old Han Ying entered the major through the adult examination. While at Xiamen University, Han Ying spent all day in the library, reading a lot of Chinese and English materials. At first, she took notes in both Chinese and English. Later, her densely packed notebook was seen by the department director, who did not expect it. She was surprised that an adult student studied so hard and seriously, so she was encouraged to try to expand her notes into a dictionary, because at that time there was no professional Chinese-English accounting dictionary in China.

After more than three years of work without holidays, the first draft of a 1.4 million-word "English-Chinese Accounting Dictionary" has finally been completed. The day after the first draft was completed, my daughter was born. Because of the hard work during pregnancy, my daughter was only 5 pounds when she was born. My daughter is now 15 years old and studying in high school in the United States. She is 1.7 meters tall, but her body is still very thin. This made Han Ying feel very guilty.

After the first draft was completed in 1986, it took another three years to proofread it six times. The dictionary was officially published in 1993. The preface was written by the beloved dean of the department. The publishing unit is Tsinghua University Press and the distributor is Xinhua Bookstore. Han Ying received a royalties of 30,000 yuan.

The 30,000 yuan royalties are disproportionate to Han Ying’s hard work, but Han Ying’s income is far more than 30,000 yuan. By independently compiling this accounting dictionary, Han Ying's accounting professional level far exceeds that of a graduate student. Now Han Ying can conduct roadshows in English to many investors in the United States, largely due to the hard work accumulated during this period.

Entered HP by accident: After graduating from Xiamen University in 1985, Han Ying served as a financial analyst in the Finance Department of China National Offshore Oil Corporation. "The projects she was responsible for were never less than 500 million US dollars."

One day in 1987, Han Ying was pushing her bicycle on the street when she happened to see a sign erected on the side of the road with a recruitment advertisement for Hewlett-Packard. With the attitude of "check it out if it's okay", Han Ying followed the instructions on the sign and found HP. HP's recruiter asked her what position she was applying for and if she knew anything about HP. Han Ying said that she was just here to take a look. She had never heard of the name HP and she didn't want to apply for any position. In the ensuing chat, the other party felt that Han Ying was the person HP was looking for, so he said, you might as well fill out a form first.

This incident passed like this. But unexpectedly, Deng Tao, the HR manager of HP, contacted Han Ying one year later and said that he very much hoped that she could join HP. At that time, wages in state-owned enterprises were very low. A salary of more than 100 yuan was only enough to cover the nanny and necessary living expenses at home, but it was an iron rice bowl.

If you join HP, your salary will be three or four times the original salary, but it will be a poor job.

Han Ying just felt that HP was able to save a form she filled out carelessly a year ago. A company that does things so seriously and meticulously will definitely become a great company. Therefore, Han Ying finally decided to take up this muddy rice bowl and officially joined China Hewlett-Packard Company in September 1988. Han Ying started from the bottom at HP. In 1993, she began to serve as the financial manager of HP China. In 1996, she began to serve as the chief financial officer and business development director of HP China.

For a Chinese with no overseas education background to reach this position at HP has hit the ceiling. At this time, Tian Suning, the CEO of AsiaInfo at the time, appeared.

AsiaInfo in 1997: Han Ying said that the thing that meant the most to her was not leading AsiaInfo to land on Nasdaq, but choosing to join AsiaInfo because AsiaInfo gave her a brand new platform.

AsiaInfo was founded in Dallas, USA in 1993 and began developing business in China in 1995. 1997 was a period of great development for AsiaInfo. In this year, AsiaInfo received many orders, with a turnover of nearly 200 million, and its employees quickly expanded to 200. AsiaInfo truly became a "large Internet system integration company", but at the management level The question also popped up in my mind. In October, a well-known venture capital consultant in Silicon Valley asked Tian Suning, CEO of AsiaInfo: What is AsiaInfo's business model? Tian Suning's answer is: We don't care about this. Our company is making money every day, every month, and every year.

But whether the company is making money or losing money, and which project is making money and which project is losing money, Tian Suning and others do not know clearly.

At the end of 1997, AsiaInfo received a venture capital investment of US$18 million. During this financing process, Asia Credit Union took more than 4 months to complete the financial statements that investors wanted to see, and paid high professional service fees. In the end, what was actually received from the US$18 million was US$14 million. The financing cost was terrifyingly high. .

In January 1998, when venture capitalists asked Tian Suning what AsiaInfo's planned turnover was in 1998, Tian Suning's answer was "US$30 million or US$40 million." The venture capitalist was furious and told him that he would lose management rights of the company if he continued. Only then did Tian Suning truly realize how important it was to have a qualified CFO.

Tian Suning poached people: In early 1998, Tian Suning went to the National School of Administration to attend a class and was deeply attracted by the teacher giving a lecture on the stage. Before the class was over, Tian Suning had already made up his mind: He must invite this person to AsiaInfo.

This person is Han Ying, who joined HP at the age of 34 and was promoted from an ordinary financial officer to the financial director of China HP at a rate of one promotion every two years.

However, Han Ying had little interest in joining AsiaInfo at that time because AsiaInfo and China HP were not in the same weight class at that time. Tian Suning asked a senior consultant from a well-known venture capital company to invite Han Ying to dinner, and Han Ying reluctantly agreed out of politeness. During the dinner, Han Ying said to Tian Suning: "My salary is very high. I'm afraid AsiaInfo can't bear it." She hoped that Tian Suning would retreat despite the difficulties, but she didn't expect Tian Suning's reply to be: "Everything can be discussed."

In the next three months, Tian Suning began to send Han Ying some articles he had written, talking about CICA’s passionate feelings of “seizing the opportunity of the technological revolution and realizing the ideal of serving the country with science and technology” and talking about his own ambitions: “ China's industrial revolution lags behind Western countries by 100 years, but the Internet keeps pace with the world. In the Internet industry, China can give birth to world-class companies, and AsiaInfo is such a company."

The ideals and persistence of Tian Suning and AsiaInfo moved Han Ying's heart. In AsiaInfo, Han Ying felt a sense of belonging in life. In June 1998, Han Ying resigned from her position as CFO of HP China and became CFO of AsiaInfo.

The first thing Han Ying did after coming to AsiaInfo was to build a financial system that complied with international accounting standards. Three months later, the system was completed. Han Ying entered the financial data from 1995 to 1998 into the system for analysis. The result surprised all the senior managers: AsiaInfo's brilliant 1997 actually showed a financial loss.

Be long on AsiaInfo: As the financial director of AsiaInfo, Han Ying's "reform" focuses on financial management, implementing a management system with the financial system as the core, and fully implementing the budget system.

Han Ying has a very famous example: For example, if you want to open a restaurant, you must figure out in advance how big the area of ??the restaurant can be supported by the money you have, what kind of chef you will hire, what level of decoration it will be, how many seats it will accommodate, and how long the investment payback period will be. Long wait problem. If you decorate a hotel to be particularly high-end without considering everything, it will cost a lot of money, and the chef's salary will not be paid before the investment is recovered. As a result, the chef will leave, and a very well-decorated restaurant will become A home-cooked restaurant, but customers who eat home-cooked food are afraid to come in after seeing such a magnificent decoration. The result can only be that it loses its customer base and goes bankrupt.

AsiaInfo’s first venture financing of US$14 million at the end of 1997 had almost been spent by 1999. Han Ying had to start raising a second round of financing for AsiaInfo. This time the investor is Intel, with an investment of US$20 million. What makes Han Ying proud is that AsiaInfo's Finance Department completed the 1,500 pages of financial statements required for financing in only 7 days, and the financing cost was less than 1% of the financing amount.

The smooth financial system ensured that AsiaInfo was listed on the market as scheduled on March 3, 2000, before the Nasdaq market turned, becoming the first Chinese Internet technology company listed in the United States. Among Morgan Stanley's many Asian clients, AsiaInfo is the first company to be able to complete its IPO as scheduled. In addition, AsiaInfo issued 5 million shares at a price of US$24 per share. The stock price closed at US$99.56 that day, an increase of 314%, setting a record for the highest single-day increase in Nasdaq Asian stocks, causing great shock inside and outside the industry.