Um welcome to the Asian leadership series my name is Karen from the Department of management and I'm your MC for this evening um some of you may wonder how this talk come about actually it is through a conversation between Yuna case manager and myself about how much we want to find a young successful Asian business leader and someone whom all our undergraduate students can relate to and Yun said well Karen have You heard of or heard about um this the founder of the post Production Office limited necklace de and I said perfect so uh with
the tremendous support with the tremendous support from the uh post Production Office limited here we are delivering to you our first Asian leadership Series so thank you very much for [Applause] coming so since this talk is especially For You students the whole event is Going to be hosted by students so um the format is this the first 20 minutes or so Mr Nicholas is going to share some of his experience and insights with us and that will be followed by uh about 45 minutes uh chatting session between the three student interviewers and Mr nichas and
then we'll be round up by a 15 minutes Q&A session so may I now invite the three student interviewers Joslyn Mandy and Nathan to the floor please so before we officially kick off the Event just a friendly reminder of some simple house rules so can you first can you please switch your mobile phone to silent mode and secondly no laptop computer no live recording and third I understand everyone is very excited but please remain seated during the event um and last but not least if you want to leave the electure theater during the uh event
can you please use the concour store at the back so without further Ado may I invite Professor Roger King director of the center for the business case studies and he himself a highly suful successful business leader to kick off the event thank you all uh it's really a great great honor and privilege for HK us to have Mr Nicholas T here first of all I would like to also uh thank our president Tony to be here and our Dean uh Dean Lan and of course many many other honored guests but most importantly you Students I
think uh this is probably one of the biggest events we ever had uh just to let you know Nicholas uh when the uh uh registry opened and within hours it was totally full in fact this room only holds 400 people within a day and a half we had 1,700 people signed up and clearly didn't come to see Tony nor me but anyway uh I was uh uh asked to say a few words about our case Center okay and Uh many of you may or may not be aware of it uh we have a case Center
here in hk's business school which is relatively new okay and let me just tell you why we actually started this thing it was actually at the encouragement of our de and basically most of you probably aware of the notion of case study itself for those of you may not understand or have had the chance case study actually brings in real live business situations into the classroom by writing cases on That company usually and but we also back it up with Theory uh and allow students to actually analyze the situation itself so but having said that
there are a lot of other schools particularly Harvard Ivy uh and Darton and many many other schools that do right cases so so why should we be writing cases well one of my colleagues Professor Pung here and uh what we did was uh before I said to Leonard uh yes we will do this because he asked me to Do it uh on a prono basis I might say uh so I said well before we actually do this let's take a survey and understand what are we currently doing in our school and who uses case method
and so what we did was we actually took a survey of all the faculty members that are teaching the MBA program itself okay and what we discover well first of all at the encouragement of the dean we actually had 2third of the faculty responded to the survey over 66 of them And what was discovered was that students actually like classes that have cases in it number one they gave higher scores for class classes that have that so for those of you are teaching this is a great news the second thing is I actually like the
professor that's teaching it and the third thing was how come we always study Western company cases why don't we have more Asian cases And therefore our main main focus is now on Asian in fact my colleagues and I Jerome there as well have now coined the concept Asian cases by Asians for Asians now it's not to say that someone for Harvard if they ask for a case we won't give it to them but I would hope that in a few years they would actually come to us and ask for cases why because a Harvard Professor
their thinking process is very very Western they don't really understand how businesses are Conducted in this part of the world and hence that's the our primary go here and we're also very very lucky that uh many of our faculty now have been supporting the concept itself and in fact even though the tenure system in the school doesn't necessarily recognize those that are involved in writing cases or even teaching cases but we're moving along that line so this is the purpose of that and in fact many of our cases we are able to invite honored guests
to come But more importantly in the classroom sometimes and uh I recall one of my uh cases the uh individual that came to the class this is uh the person that's actually in the case itself he said to me Roger you know what this is great I'm getting so many good suggestions from students in fact it's the cheapest Consulting service I ever had so you know the whole idea is you need to participate uh for you students in this Room and it's great great opportunity to analyze real life situations so I'm sure again you're not
here because you want to listen to me so it gives me great pleasure and uh Nicholas really needs no introduction but here today he's coming as an entrepr preneur a business he founded several years back when he was only guess how old 22 that was only yesterday Right and he has a very very successful business now you have an office here in Hong Kong of course as well as in Shanghai I understand right so uh without further Ado uh I would like to invite Nicholas to come up that was all for me right hello um
thank you for the warm welcome and uh ladies and gentlemen welcome and thank you for having me on campus this is truly overwhelming um I am instructed to Del The speech in English so therefore I will be speaking in English but if any of you feel more comfortable speaking in CES or in Mand please feel free to do so I do hope that at the end of this session both parties you and I will gain something out of it and leave behind me somewhat kickass memory all right wow this is a this is really intense
right now for me because it's maybe it's because it's the first time I've I'm showing up as an As an entrepreneur in front of a crowd what is really odd is that I have been doing this most of my life I have been giving speeches and performances and talks around the world uh the crowds ranging from 30 people to 130,000 people but never have I been so uptight and nerve-wracking because maybe it's because I am simply put in front of a crowd of academics and I feel that I am actually out of My I do
feel that I am talking to another caliber I'm left out so the first point is really to to tell you I dropped out of school in grade 10 and I urge you really to go through your education most of you I think have gone halfway really you might as well go all the way and grab that damn piece of paper if I had the chance to take all the wealth soal and so-call fame and Glory that I have Now and buy back 15 years of life but keep the knowledge that I have now and relive
the that the the the the physique I had 15 years ago and Chade places with you right now oh I would make that trade in a heartbeat really seriously um I dropped out of school when I was maybe in grade 10 and ever since I set foot into the so-called business World there has not been a day that has gone by without me hating myself and Regretting that I did not fully commit to my education may it be fine arts uh agriculture architecture ceramics who knows I don't know NBA you know but I dropped and
every day that has gone by I I I do regret you know some of you may not feel it right now but that diploma when you're trying to close a deal with someone it means just that much more when you're trying to convince someone to an idea a concept something new that piece of paper will just mean that much More and people will judge you and they will doubt you that much less that is reality and and and and it has been hard for me but so I think I am here to hopefully convince you
to go through go through the education go all the way grab that piece of paper before you leave okay uh do not walk into the obstacles that I have been walking through so and for the people who do not know uh I have been running a socalled post production Business for the past nine years and that's what I do apart from the acting or the singing part the entertainment part there's also the business part of Nicholas um we are based in Hong Kong right now we have a sub branch in Shanghai it's doing very well
and we are going to open in Beijing in the end hopefully the end of May can I say that please yeah because we are in a rush and everything is really cled right now so I'm looking at my colleague whether it get CED off at the end of May um when I say post production it's actually to a lot of people as a very foreign term so what is postproduction post production is I mean by Audio dubbing online editing offline editing compositing uh animation computer Graphics all that good stuff actually everything you see right now
on television advertising wise or in the cinema or even in the internet every Visual image you see right now is actually uh it has it should have undergone the process of uh post- production in order to achieve a certain standard of broadcast quality and just by saying that I'm very happy to say that it's it's already a very obvious high demand or else I would not be here today and so for a more visual uh explanation of what I do uh I would like to show the company real and these are some of the brands
that we do represent In Hong Kong or in mainland China right now some of you may recognize or may not recognize it it's okay [Applause] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] a [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Oh a [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you uh that's uh some of the brands that we represent at the moment but what you have just seen is the pretty side of uh the production I would actually like to show you some of the Before and after as to actually how we make a living so what I'm about to show you is uh
something called the Canon g12 model it's an advertisement shot two years ago uh by a very famous crew but okay why don't why don't I show you here you will see uh in front of a green screen just a uh it's merely a a model holding onto a camera and all it is sorry it's actually just a track back shot of this uh model it's not quite up to the Entertaining part this is the source that we got when we first accepted this project we have taken the initiative to to talk to the producer and
the director and say hey why don't we do something more interesting and uh something that is to the next level graphic wise and so can we please show the um next layer [Music] so with audio and visual enhancement each layer by layer you can See that inch by inch this is what we do to enhance the visual effect for the outcome after 1,160 somewhat layers and modeling put onto this image you get the finished product [Music] poot g12 Canon was that all right there's one more full version of the finished version [Music] [Music] [Music] pohot
g12 Canon all right there you have it and that's what we do for a living and for the people who do not know U post production that's what we do and uh so any questions so far why don't I ask a question who in here wants to be successful raise your hand if you want to succeed cuz I sure It's how do what's what's preventing you from raising your hand all right anyway uh second question and the more important one who's lying because I'm pretty sure if you go out there and you ask people who
wants to be successful 99% of the people will tell you I want to succeed I want to be the best basketball player I want to be The best hockey player I want to be the best artist engineer whatever they will talk but most of you want to succeed but are you truly being honest to yourself whereas you found your passion you know your strength and weaknesses where to place yourself in the market how you want people to see you and how to project yourself in the market I founded this company because at uh at the
age of 22 and three Uh between that time I was on set on a movie set and I saw the director go up to the CG the computer Graphics head department and asked him could we actually do uh I want to do this to the image can we add a a computer graphic animation into this and he hesitated he froze and I thought wow so that stalled for maybe an hour or so but ticking tick tick tick tick tick all that is money and he called back to his headquarters and asked for the allowance to
say like They want to do this this this this and that so can we please after days of freezing multi-million dollars was lost in that process and at the time I was releasing a lot of um lot of music videos I was doing a lot of uh concerts and advertisements and movies I wanted to enhance visual the test myself and I thought wow this should be our realm you know we that's our professional why are we so doing so poor in it so Then if some of you have may may have read through uh interviews
that I did sell my property I at leased it for a certain amount of money to invest in this business I started off with four to six people and I I I bought one or two second hand machines to start it off and luckily I am here today but what one message I do want to want to get through is it seems like Nicholas gambled everything away for a good future I didn't uh it is a gamble but before I Bought those secondhand machines I actually calculated and I talked to a few producers and we
signed contracts for three movies two advertisements and three music videos that would cover my one and a half years overhead ahead of time so if I was to fail I somewhat had a safety net that I won't just kill myself because I sold my house I sold everything what do I have left so I did have a bit of safety net I don't want to get the wrong message out to the public That you know well need just we just sold everything so we can do that too please do not all right um so when
I was saying be honest to yourself and who wants to be successful because some of us say we want to be successful but we don't want to succeed more than we want to speak we don't want to succeed more than we want to look cool and and go to the Koke session tonight we don't want to succeed more than Hanging out with friends you're going to the cinema you must be honest to yourself to find the ultimate passion so therefore are you willing to sacrifice all these Temptations to prevent you from practicing your art I
don't believe the saying of practice makes perfect to me there is no Perfection there should always be room for improvement practice to me practice Makes permanence you will only have a much higher probability not to mess things up but there is no Perfection that that that to me so any questions so far my butt so far these three guys are actually very in um intimidating right now because it it feels like that at any moment they're going to Chuck some intellectual questions I mean like ninja stars [Music] [Applause] [Music] are really e questions from us
you've basically answered about half of our questions already so because the angle you're sitting in the angle you're sitting no um really thanks for your um brief introduction and a warm welcome to today's um Asian leadership series again so just before um our conversation begin with prer us to call you Nick or neck okay so um Nick so we as we know that you have established a very Successful company and we know and we have saw a sample work from Canon and we want to know that what is your greatest challenge when starting up your
company the greatest challenge really is to earn the trust of clients at the age of 23 because it is a it is a human Natural Instinct not to believe in someone 10 or 20 years younger than you and to establish that trust is a reputation but that together it takes Time and we started off with really miniature siiz work and earned the trust of some directors and said you know are you guys ready to go to the next level I of course can say yes but then what I've learned is saying yes doesn't mean anything
because no one wants to take the fall and it is a cruel world out there U people will start blaming stuff to you know and say well Nick screwed that up it's not me so what I've done and changed through these years is I Don't say yes anymore I go back and I ask my team do you think we can do this and if so why don't we do a 30second demo to shut their mouth period so the hardest part the hardest challenge is is really to I think from for any business is to earn
the trust um actually mentioning that I myself I uh ever since I was little I loved Hong Kong action movies I I still do I really do with all my passion being honest with Myself I can tell you I love action movies and and I'm willing to put my life on the line literally if it takes and to protect Hong Kong action so 10 years ago I made myself a little promise I said if I'm going to be in this business I want to I want to be an action star at least participate in one
of those jagie Chan cool movies or or the Japanese style movies or the Don Yen Movies and I I'll show you this actually it's more of a present to my son uh it's a two-minute real for his first birthday of some of my favorite stunts please do not try this at home because what you're about to see for the two minutes I've been training for 12 years and a lot of luck is involved that's what why I'm saying practice only makes permanence because the more I do this the more I will [Music] die jumping off
the 41st floor is not is never wise but I did that 19 times yeah and that was only one or two ft away from breaking my [Applause] neck that's the convention center [Applause] [Music] it's funny they say uh you can put these Paddings on but wherever you hit it never hits pad it hits you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right so be [Applause] [Music] gu [Music] So tonight [Music] get you one high [Music] tonight you know I'm probably my son will not understand this message for another 20 years thank God I'm I'm still here
in one piece but that's how far I'm willing to go for for what I love uh of course I'm not asking you to jump off Building um I've actually seen this video about 10 times really yeah um but it still gives me goosebumps every time I watch it uh it's very it's very emotionally touching but Shifting the focus towards the students and um you have definitely found your passion but how would you advise us on finding our own dreams and our own passions like I said I think be honest to yourself uh no I I
don't think anyone can can can Answer that question for you it's it's what you feel every day you have to live it you have to smell it you have to feel it you have to touch it it's everything around you something that that never bores you I guess yeah if you if you are hesitating for something give it a second thought but I'm here mainly through trial and error and I guess that's part of life you only start losing things when you start growing but that's the contradictive Philosophical part of life right so like when
we're 12 we we're so eager to be 18 and say yeah I'm old enough to stay up I'm old enough to to go clubbing I'm old enough to to click the porn button um but when we do get older like I am now we lose the stamina we start losing a lot of reflexes speed power all that then we start treasuring stuff but what you love the most ask yourself I I I don't think anyone can really tell you that question for the answer well but Like sometimes if we find our own dream we might
not follow it like we might not listen to our heart because of the social norms or expectation from our parents so what advice can you give a student on really pursuing on your dream and stick to your mind I don't think anyone oh unless your dream is something uh that is so destructive that you're hurting someone else I don't think anybody would stop you from pursuing your dreams right if It's something constructive or or or something normal I don't say it it should be okay if you're not trying to kill someone and make a statement
I that's what I I I did in my stunts you know I didn't just go about talking to the director saying I want to do action movies so I'm going to jump off I trained and then I started doing little stunts I started to train in weapons my fitness the whole thing is is it it has To start from scratch so you want to prove someone wrong prove them wrong regarding this as um uh Asian leadership series for you uh we invite you to uh like talk about your passion your your leip experience then what
do you think is the one uh one key uh leadership quality that you think is the most important that leads you to thex uh one of the most important leadership qualities I think is is to know yourself And to place the correct people in the correct position you know really after I started this company a lot of people say and they ask me right to the point what the hell do you know about po production and to be honest if you ask me to sit in front of a multi-million dollar machine and ask me to
color grade will I do as well as my staff I will not I will fail I will crash but I don't know how many of you you follow football but uh for Example let's say last night Chelsea and Manchester United played a game all right see we got into reaction now the the manager of uh Manchester United Mr Ferguson he's not going on the field and doing Corner kicks and free kicks or or saving the ball he's placing the correct people in the correct position if Rooney scored a goal is it purely Rooney's Glory that
he scored the goal or was it also because Mr Ferguson placed him in The correct position so he had the chance to be assisted then to score so I think to place the correct people in the correct position to do their work do the jobs and then to inspire to dedicate to motivate all that together seeing through your staff being honest to yourself your work and your staff all that together is is I think it's really important speaking of Human Resources speaking of corporate leadership we have about 350 students sitting here today And they might
just happen to be interested to apply for your company um feel free please please so just just maybe just maybe but um so for qualities of your employees what what specific qualities of employees do you look for creative thinking and uh because uh in a business like like like ours it's imperative that every every every job is unique we can Not Duplicate jobs uh actually I'm not quite happy with my business model because of that it makes It very tough uh whereas we're not in a job where robots or machines can just keep Printing and
make money out of that product each job is unique so when I look for uh people in in in our staff I look for creative thinking uh motivation energy that they want to bring into the image and of course technique and maybe some inborn sense or Talent so um you have many staff in your company so how do you encourage a Creative thinking in your company we have we have over 130 staff right now and after opening Beijing we might we might uh raise the number by a bit um actually take them on to I
I participate in the daily routine of their lives uh it might surprise you but I actually I I I sometimes I cook for them uh I make them desserts or are we uh if some of you might have read on the newspapers we have just went on a pretty fancy vacation do we have that Real here okay damn I game [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] w [Music] you [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] that's a very amazing tree that as we can see from the video we we know that you actually have a very good relationship with
your employees your work c um I'm wondering what is your company's philosophy regarding work live do you often go to like overseas trip with your employes every yes I do yes I do I try to participate as much as I can and uh trips like these it's rare to Come by these days and I'm not just throwing a multi-million dollar trip for them and say Hey you know take this go enjoy yourself you got to be part of it you got to live through their eyes see what they're going through solve the problem before it
actually hits the Rock and before the Collision starts solve the problem and you will earn the utmost respect the difference I think between a world class company and a mediocre company if you Are feared your staff will only work as hard as to not get fired but if you're respected not only will you have staff you'll have a team not only will you have a team you will have an army and they will go that extra mile they will push that extra amount to fight for you for the company and that is the difference between
a worldclass company then just that's not that's not bad so you have mentioned earlier that Trust is very important in your company so how do you build trust with your employee among Shanghai Beijing and Hong Kong oh we have uh we have we we we actually take terms we send uh some of our senior Partners uh our senior uh Engineers up to Mainland China and we train new people this our our business is actually very uh creative and human-based business whereas we have we need a lot of people and that's where the next challenge for
me eyes is to Find people like you who are young who have potential to enhance better graphics and have that motivation to to to say I can take this up to the to the next level uh I think the whole business is I think the whole world is asking for people like like like you right now uh stepen SPI Spielberg in 20111 last year announced that he's going to dump in $1.5 billion dollars into Shanghai uh doing post production in DreamWorks and to me yes that is scary that is a big competitor but but I'm
happy that to just to know that there's such a high demand so therefore Supply is also needed so could you briefly explain to us um your vision statement of your company we or I myself I hope I I I really hope to put give something back to the society in terms of uh visual wise and Since I've been in this entertainment business for for over 14 years now I want to give something back to to what is being broadcasted and to this might sound too big but to re educate our our our the Next Generation
my kids to know what is a better quality look at Korea look at Japan we have always been following the footsteps of their images I think it's time for us and that is why we are here today for Asian leadership and to tell The Western people that hey we I can I can tell you right now that if you want NE to do titan 3D I can do it just give me that time and give me that preparation post production alone cannot make a piece of blank paper into magic we need the the uh the
whole process of pre-production along with us to merge and together then we can I'm pretty sure that we can achieve free Titanic don't think that we can't do it we can H But ultimately I'm looking for Education if There's a kid like me a random kid like me in Hong Kong that wants to learn about animation or that likes to play video games I'm sure a lot of you do you have different angles and visions of of of things that people don't have so time is not by the number of the population in the whole
mainland China only if 1% of mainland China people wanted to learn animation or post-production that would mean 130 million Students how can we not do 3D Titanic I'll do 8D Titanic talked about your vision um and we've also talked about how you build trust with your employees how do you ensure this shared vision from different offices even in Shanghai in Hong Kong or in Beijing well each year I give this annual speech to them and uh so far I'm very very uh thankful to to say that we have reached each Year's goal we have moved
From uh our office was in the basement actually of uh a building in cosway Bay last year before April the 2 and after April the 2nd we moved to uh quite a luxurious building right now in in cubis uh number one uh five-story building and well what I mean is each year we're meeting our goals and then two years ago I announced that we are the first company to cross border with mainland China to have a sub branch in Shanghai and in Hong Kong and we have achieved That goal and within a year I am
very proud to announce that we are going to open in Beijing which no other company Coast company has done in in the history of Hong Kong so for the staff I always tell them I'm not asking you to work for me I'm asking you to work for yourself and it is important to make them feel like that they're at home that they want to go to work and they see their future not am I Only getting the salary paid I am wow this guy is actually he's he's making every promise come true and for them
that is so important because they're not you know everything is coming true and they they see further and I think that is very important for for everyone um working the Creative Media industry I suppose that there could be some diverging opinions amount you work then when you actually face such type of Situation how would you sect to those disagreements uh well you know post production is really a passive It's s sadly to say it's a passive very passive uh business we for the past maybe 200 years I think post production is to do what we
are ordered to do by The Producers or the uh directors of people who shoot these commercials but we have managed somewhat to turn around to take the initiative to to to actually go to the meeting with the directors and say Uh is this what you're trying to achieve or what are you trying to achieve uh why don't we go this way so now we're participating more into the pre-production to ensure that we will get a good quality out on the post production uh that is main over um has there ever been a time when other
companies try to steal the employees from using I I guess in the creative industry then there could be some uh intense completion in getting The right talents yes there has been and I think it was about five six years ago uh one of our competitors was willing to pay five times the pay for 20 of my staff to walk away from my company and I tell you the truth I mean 20 five times of pay I would I would I I myself would think twice but out of 20 people only one left and and I
don't I don't blame anybody for they they must have their own reasons But I am very proud to say that that we kept 19 of them and I did asked him why I I I said so really you know why are you staying what is it that's making you stay in my company I'm not paying you any more than other people and they replied simply that we we're happy when we're here we feel like home we know how to bring a smile to to our work that actually shocked me quite a bit on how uh
the new generation values their life today not only do they wish For a high salary but they need to be respected loved and cared for and feel that this is our home there was once when we're when we were moving to the new company actually I called on a vacation I said I said all right guys stop today we're not going to work and they say so what are we going to do I said we're going to go look for our new office together and they were actually quite shocked and the whole Army of us
just you know we were we were Strolling through all these buildings and they asked why why are we looking at this I said because you the ones who are sitting here 18 hours per day not me I want you to feel that you're at home I want you to wake up and be motivated and say I want to I want I want to go back and and fix that I I think I can do better these little things accumulate to a better crew that's really inspiring so it is Inevitable that there are ups and downs
in our lives so how do you stay positive H stay positive I consider myself very lucky and we all should all this we have right now is is really a privilege uh I remind myself that every day um the fact that I'm just alive doing all those crazy stunts I am I'm thankful uh I just keep reminding myself that every day as simple as that as a as a as a final question to wrap up From us three um what is the most important message you want us to take from this Asian leader series uh
you know all this is is it's great and I don't know how you do I than thank you for the warm welcome but all this all this de vone neck stuff right I'm not asking any of you to to totally Embrace this guy's personality or the way he works or the way he he does his job not to replicate or duplicate but to find yourself and find or pick up from This guy what is useful to you in your lifestyle and make it compatible and and and find yourself so from me I hope that you
can find little bits and pieces and put into into your lifestyle and create your own dreams because my dream is to make the make belief believable and I I will I will keep on doing that for a long long time although I said that was a final question I do have another one um you've actually mentioned a lot of Qualities you talked about being charismatic and how you how you lead your team how you make them like you well you don't make them like you they just like you um um you talk about uh bringing
them to different places and um so what are some really important leadership qualities that a leader must have well another one I would say is to uh set as an example you know you can talk all you want I can talk about stunts all I want and but when you're Really put under the spotlight and you don't know your stuff I don't care how much you talk you can talk forever but can you make that jump if you've been training for it you can but that for me is the ultimate test whereas in business I
may lose money I may lose a job or two but there if I was not really honest to myself I would lose a leg I would lose an arm I would lose my life so um it's It's it's knowing your stuff like I said again practice M only makes permanence thank you very much for sharing with us today um thank you for really encouraging us to pursue our own dreams and our own passions and although we've asked quite a few questions I'm sure uh the audience here has many more questions to ask you so we
will now open questions to the floor um uh just as a reminder today's session is focused on entrepreneurship Leadership this is important um uh keep in mind that today's session is focused on entrepreneurship leadership and management so questions that fall out of these categories will not be entertained um originally uh we have about 20 minutes for a Q&A session so please keep your questions uh brief and to the point if they drag on for too long I'm sorry but I'm going to cut you short and I'm going to give the question to some other student
so please be Respectful to the audience um oh uh just another thing uh when when we hand you the microphone and after you ask the question please pass it back to the staff members so other people can get a chance uh thank you for your attention and we will now start taking questions yes please hi hi Nicholas very nice to see you here uh we actually we all know you as a very successful um actor and singer am I right and instead of instead of being a Entrepreneur so I just want to ask uh how
did your great Fame affect your um appreci and your business and is there any negative uh effects because there must be some negative effects yeah thank you very much [Applause] that is an awesome question you know I was going to say about the uh the category that the questions are going to come by I was going to say if anyone was going to ask me for an autograph I'll Sign the autograph you know if you can ask me a question that I was stutter because after all we are in the study of MBA so why
not start negotiating right but I like that question um yes I did not launch to the public that I have this company that I have this company until um April 2nd last year so I've been actually going undercover for seven years and it has been really hard and that's that was actually I for forgot to mention it is another challenge for me To to be such lowkey and still participate in the in the company and why I kept it a secret was because I just thought if I really wanted to prove myself myself as an
entrepreneur first I do not want to use my fame so the so-called Fame to to assist it and also I do think that it will actually harm it in a way because the Press is just going to eat me up he's another oh he's another uh the so-called actor who's trying to do a Business but then how successful am I really I want I myself I want the the real answer and therefore I kept it a secret and I hope my clients are coming in because of the that they know they they can rely on
PO and rely on me as the CEO but not as oh yeah I'm going to give him a bit of credit because he just participated in my my my my Action meeting no I do not want that and it has been Painful sitting in the office seeing all these people all the directors come by and say oh you hey uh you here for I'm here for dubbing uh oh you're here again I'm still here for ding I've been doing that for eight years and then thank you know thank whoever is up there that's looking after
me that last year I I I can present to the public that this is my company and they completely bought that You were Jing for 8 years you think I'm M um yeah yeah yeah I it's uh it's true though any other questions yes goe hi Nicholas my name is Johnny and uh I know that you were doing really great at the age of 22 in the entertainment industry and I want to know what motivated you to establish uh the post production at the age of 22 cuz you were enjoying quite a lot of Fame
and money So yeah you should you should have sacrificed quite a lot so what motivated you to establish the company thank you like I mentioned before I uh that that little crisis I saw on the set with the movie thing with the hesitation with the post- production I was I was quite upset and ultimately I do want to get something back to the society and and and say you know I hope in the near future well a lot of a lot of times when I was trying to sell a concept or an Idea for my
own music video back at the time I was always banned I was always given the the answer saying you can't do that why it's too expensive and we don't have the technology you got to go to Hollywood for that I said really well Korea just did one that's quite similar and I don't think you know they went to Hollywood for it so I was you know I was pissed off that we are relying so much on the western technology whereas we have to be honest even today we have the Exact same Machinery that they do
it's just the culture that is different what's the difference between Brazilian soccer and China soccer we got the same BS right but it's a culture that that they live there they breathe it you know each kid is all they have is a soccer ball and and they're playing it every day like our badminton it's same but I mean it's a difference in culture and I wanted to make a difference I wanted to Make a statement yeah go ahead um Mr C was there ever a time that you wanted to like you felt yourself drifting away
from the business like when your company wasn't doing well and as a startup I guess it was very tough looking for projects or clients like and how do you take time off your acting work to know spend time your company and was there ever a time that you felt like giving up or just very tired of this whole Thing no I have not and I do feel tired sometimes as to my staff but as much as we love our jobs I there no we have never thought that you know not a second has has slipped
by my mind that I would give up this business uh because I believe simply as as simple as that I I I believe and I see it's a very logical business um China last year became the third most movie productive country in the world first Being in niia or India second being the states third is China we made 716 movies last year that's almost two movies per day now how much post- production is needed if that much of hours of movies are made each day it's a very logical business if if if you know so
much pre-production is made then there must be a space for post production and I don't doubt at all I I I I see a great future in this business uh the lady in the Front hi you have mentioned about the challenges your company had before how about uh the great success of your company it it's doing okay I really don't dare to say it's it's it's anything right now it's nothing compared to a lot of you know my my Idols like DreamWork or pixer but we're getting there and I do believe that if no one's
going to started off it might as well be me so we're trying we're Trying yeah the lady in the grace um hi you have been very successful in different areas like you're a very good actor and TR so how do you manage your time so well like you must be very busy right I have to give this credit to my to my staff a lot of times I'm a away I'm not in Hong Kong I'm not in or I'm not in mainland China I'm all over the place and we have established a a trust and
a kind of a Harmony that we are in sync we Know what we want to achieve so this I give all the credit to my staff when I'm not here uh although they will make the hard harsh decisions and or or through the internet we will communicate and we are just playing our rules the guy with the shirt in the back hi Nicholas I'm con as well and I hope I'll be as W you one day so we know about a lot of your glory success and um I would like I'm I'm curious about what
mistake have you done before as uh for You as a leader and what have you done to rectify your mistake as a leader thank you I I like that question it's hard um I have a tendency to rush as do all kids should actually maybe well when they're 22 and 23 we kind of rush into things and when I first started this business I did not go all the way to know each and every Part or Department of how to run the business or I well I I I had the I had the picture of
it but then it came to the part where I had to buy really expensive Machinery when I was buying the secondhand like I mentioned before the secondhand piece of uh it was a t it was a color corrector I did not I actually I I I bought a broken piece of machine and that cost us quite a it paid a hefty price and we had to the Maintenance for that machine uh cost us a lot and luckily we were able to survive that little crisis but yes I I I did make these mistakes and I
failed a lot lot of clients I failed a lot of staff to to trust me or not whether or not to trust me anymore of course I was cheated also but you know you can you can never really blame anybody but yourself as a leader that yes I did fail in buying a round Piece of equipment yes I did yeah yeah the Lady in Red hi uh Nico I actually I'm from Shanghai and I am wondering where's your office no no no um um actually um I I was wondering um is there any difference between
starting a new business in Hong Kong and especially like in China yeah I don't think we we should draw a line between any Country especially that we are as one now um if you hold on to the same principles uh may it be Hong Kong or the mainland China or the states or in Africa I think it should be the same yes and my office is a it's okay we're we might expand in the summer hello hello can you hear me sorry yeah Nicholas uh do you have any short term or longterm plan on your
company or On your personal life I I remember that you like action movies are youed to going for that do you have any plans in the future to have your own films short sorry this is irrelevant to entrepreneurship that's all right it's okay actually you know it's uh it's it's kind of related and although it is kind of a it's not a business secret but a lot of people think uh hey why did You all of a sudden do a post open a postp production company when you're an actor does it sound that ridiculous am
I jumping from acting to cooking I am not actually if you think about it deeply it's quite link together if I have enough bargain power and trust between the director and the producers to say look my company company can handle this now what about I participate in your next movie and I do the Post Now isn't that a win-win situation so do I have plans yes I do I do have plans to make new movies and I hope that I can bargain the deal that I can also handle the post production part if we have
all seen that you know it the last real big success in h was we were really lucky to be able to handle the col part although I wasn't in it but hey we got to the you know Venice Awards so yeah the lady in the back Hi um so you were 30 I'm sorry you were 23 when you founded your when you founded your company so um you were so young did you ever feel like you missed out on life and um how do you deal with this regrets if you or you call them regrets
um I try to think that I lived my life fully that's why I am going for every call me greedy but I'm going for every opportunity I get and why shouldn't you right um a lot of people ask me that Question do I regret anything like I said I would take I would fully commit to my education if I had the chance to to buy back 15 years of life but I don't um I I think I have lived my life fully I have two very cute sons and and they're healthy you know um I
have I'm just grateful and I I hope everybody should think out of the box sometimes You know I'm getting a lot of questions whereas how to pursue your dreams or or is this okay are we going too far uh where do you draw the line between reality and business well Leonardo D Vinci in the 1493 I think it was 1493 that that you know that sucker drew the a through what we know today as a helicopter I'm pretty sure back at the time people would call crazy what that thing flies hovers well whatever well 500
years After we are it is a very well-known Transportation device it was 1493 so don't doubt yourselves you know you may get a lot of negative inputs or comments my mom my family told me yeah they seriously in words you won't make it you won't be a successful businessman I got tons of those my dad you know they're all worried because it it's just very seldom for for Anyone in the entertainment business to actually uh make it in the from scratch I mean in the business world but that's me that's the rebellious side of me
I like proving people wrong sorry we only have about time for two more questions so uh the lady in the front right there so hi Nicholas I want to ask uh you mentioned that you have a competitor in Shanghai right so how you going to Lead your team to defeat your competitor you know competitors are everywhere and I I I like the the thought of friendly competition only through that will the clients know who is better and that makes us to excel to thrive more for excellence you know if if anything was monopolized by only
one grand name they won't fight there's no one to be in the race you can walk that marathon and Still win if you're the only one only the only one walking right or running um we just do our job as we should every day regardless if there is a competitor if that is Steven Spielberg's DreamWork coming into Shanghai or not I'm just doing my job as should my staff yeah all right our last question would go to the guy in the black shirt hi lers my name is Lincoln as you mentioned that the technique and
the Skills of production in Hong Kong is not that far from the Western industry so I want to the only difference is in terms of culture so I want to ask do you have any plans to bring the pro production office to the inter to International Market by overcoming this barrier wow right now I have to say I don't have that ability yet because I have put all my efforts and investments into first handling our Home China and but I do believe that you know uh what's a movie called ging some high right the Christian
Bale came to you know he participated in a China based movie so if you're asking me about that I think that something really far away but I hope one day or maybe through IPO um will I get the chance to uh go overseas and reach that goal but me alone I've I I really can only do that Much our last question will go to president Tony Chen will you do the honors came as a surprise uh now uh can I ask something not is not uh tied to entrepreneurship I didn't vot everybody want to ask
that kind of question you may sorry you I see I won't entertain this but I I don't know if he's feeling generous uh you know some of us sitting here a little bit older than uh you know most Of the people here and some of us grew up with movies uh you know that related to your family so uh uh no but I wasn't going to ask about that I was going to ask uh the must be a a lot of family pressure you know just not maybe in implicit to live up to the family
fame um you know maybe founding a a new company finding your own place making your own name uh I just wonder how you uh you know your your your view of this How you live through this you know must be a lot of expectation that a lot of our student also feel you before you say you have to find your own passion but a lot of our student also feel the pressure from the family there's a lot of family expectations so for you with the particular family that you have with the fame and uh and
so on you must feel that 10 times more than our typical student I want to hear what your your view on This uh it's a good question I um really but I used to hate that shadow that overpowers Nicholas SE because I am the son of whom and whom but I have learned maybe because I started working at the age of 15 or 16 and now you know have did my parents do anything wrong I have learned to accept and actually be proud of who they are I used to really hate that shadow J seriously
um but as you grow and you go through crisis and all that crap you learn when you get hit and life will hit you as hard as he wants to no one will stand by you as close as your family and it's through these little problems and crisis where where I have found a way to relief that that that Shadow as being whoever son and embrace it and love it and say yes I am so what we're both you know we're both doing okay as a human being and in this business in the entertainment business
I am proud now to hold his yeah my my father or my mother's hand and say we've done our part in this business so really I I I I know cuz I have kids also and sometimes I think about it when I think about it and I ask myself wow You know I I'm under a lot of pressure I was under the eyes of six million people in the population of Hong Kong watching me grw up as the son of Patrick C now that I think about it what's really unfair are my kids because now
that they are under the you know the lens of 1.3 billion people in China and my kids are under more pressure than I am but what I hope they will learn from this is if they can Just simply grow as a human being and not let my shadow overpower them too much now that's being a man now that's a being to being able to live life as you should and why let anything stand in your way especially if there's someone who loves you and that is unconditional love they expect nothing in your turn and I
bet you anything because just simply because you're sitting here today they want the best for you this is HK us Man all right that will officially end the Q&A session Karen back to you okay um let's give them a round of applause that was and um I have to say that n class this is my second time meeting you because the first time we did a video interview with him and that will be showing in the fourth coming classes and that was truly inspirational even though I've heard it twice so thank you very much and
to show appreciation may I Invite de nanet to the stage and and for gift giving ceremony [Applause] and D please remain on stage may I now invite president Tony Chan and and Professor Roger King and also the three Student interviewers please join necklace 4 a photo oh I can see there are lots of photos I think should come up Okay thank you very much and most of all thank you all for coming to the event give yourself a round of applause [Applause] now um a couple of announcement I'm sure that many of you will are
very interested in joining post production limited right and uh the senior managers are going to stay behind and entertain questions so that you can explore job opportunities with them Um yes so we have Amanda and also Dan who's the managing director and also Michael is going to to join us who's the director and um so for those who would like to talk to them please come down later and in the meantime in the meantime I'm afraid that this is the end of our first Asian leadership series and uh I hope to see you again tonight
so for those students who would like to talk can you please come down it's a free format Thing anyone wants a job
