Founder Interview
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Wu Hong
Founder and Executive Chairman of New Alliance
Initiator and Secretary-General of the Future Forum
1 What was the historical background for the establishment of New Alliance in 2001? How was it related to the Boao Forum for Aisa?
New Alliance’s establishment was closely related to the Boao Forum for Aisa, which was also the result of the special international landscape and political and economic environment at that time. In this way, we can say that New Alliance is a child of its time.
In the 1990s, Asia arrived at an important growth pole that established its position as a global economic powerhouse. However, there was not an international forum led by Asian leaders that focused on matters particularly important to us and served our interests from our own perspectives. At that time, one of my friends came to me with an intention to create such an international conference like one that I mentioned. It was this idea that brought us together to set a temporary working group in motion, the predecessor of New Alliance, which got off the ground with a vision to build a Asian forum. Our mission was simple--- we hoped to build this forum into a political and economic exchange platform with influence on the international stage.
2 How was the Boao Forum for Asia organized? How did New Alliance come into being?
It was an unforgettable experience gearing up for the first Boao Forum for Asia. Back then, Boao, Hainan, was only a small fishing town and home to only about 10,000 people. As it was China’s first non-government, international conference hosted on a regular basis, neither the government nor the organizers had any past experience to draw upon. Many issues challenged us during our preparation such as weak infrastructure, inadequate resources, and insufficient run-up time.
On February 26-27, 2001, the first Boao Forum for Asia ("the first annual conference of Boao Forum for Asia") was held at a temporary venue in Boao, Hainan, China, and former dignitaries from 26 countries were in attendance. I was very impressed by the manner in which all the guests, including the dignitaries, entrepreneurs, and academic experts, shared their insights freely with the spirit of open communication. The speeches and dialogues were filled with strong willingness to engage in more open communication, mutual cooperation in hopes of achieving greater prosperity for the Asian countries. It was so inspiring.
In that same year, we came up with the SLOGAN for the Boao Forum for Asia that many are familiar with today--- “Let the World Hear Asia’s Voice” From that day on, Asia's voice has been heard all over the world, and the Boao Forum for Asia has become one of the most influential international forums based in Asia, earning a reputation as the "Davos of the East.”
Holding the first Boao Forum for Asia made the us--- the founding partners of New Alliance--- realize it was an epoch-making event. We decided to establish New Alliance in order to support such a great event and continue to promote open communication for the international, political, business and academic communities.
New Alliance was officially established in 2001. For 15 years, it served as the provider of branding, conference, communication and other planning and executing PR services for the forum. The establishment of New Alliance enabled us to start out with an international vision and a high level of political and economic cooperation, making these attributes an essential part of who we are.
3 New Alliance has maintained a strategic partnership with political and economic exchange platforms such as the Boao Forum for Asia, the Lujiazui Forum and the Finance Annual Conference for more than 10 years. In what ways did these partnerships contribute to New Alliance’s development?
Our continuous involvement with the Boao Forum made us quite experienced in platform building, which paved the way for us to play a part in Caijing’s annual conference, the Lujiazui Financial Forum, organized by the Shanghai Municipal Finance Office, and the World Media Summit, held by the Xinhua News Agency. Thanks to our success in these efforts, New Alliance has also become a PR partner brand for many political and economic exchange platforms and international exchange events.
Since 2004, New Alliance has successfully and innovatively integrated with its political, business, academic and fund resources by leveraging its understanding of China’s policies, economic trends and public interests on financial enterprises. As a provider of services, including government relations consulting, branding strategy consulting, and media communications management, we are dedicated to set up high-level dialogue platforms for the government, business and academic communities, helping China’s financial brands go global as well as foreign brands establish their presence in China.
Over a decade of development has set New Alliance apart from its peers, enabling it to leverage its expertise in building political and economic exchange platforms and experience in brand consulting in the financial industry. Combined with the distinct features of media communication in the Internet era, all of this has allowed New Alliance to gradually grow into a communication and consultancy firm with a focus on the financial sector. Today, New Alliance is a firm in possession of a wide range of resources and a strong business model.
4 In 2015, you initiated Future Forum with entrepreneurs, scientists and investors who cared about science and hoped to carry forward the scientific spirit. How would you describe your transition from helping set up political and economic exchange platforms and focusing on financial consulting to working in the non-profit sector?
We were so proud of the role we played in making many international exchange events possible such as the Boao Forum for Asia, the Finance Magazine Annual Conference, and the Lujiazui Financial Forum. As New Alliance gained more insights into the world of politics and economics, it continued to learn from its exposure to cutting-edge economic development. At the same time, we were also thinking about the future and hoped to build a platform that could make a great difference in the future.
Looking at the big picture, those of us who were born in 1960s were quite fortunate despite the material scarcity. People in my generation were pure about their childhood dreams of becoming scientists and benefitted greatly from the economic reforms as well as the information revolution.
The Future Forum was originated from our generation’s deep-seated dreams, our patriotism and our desire to make a difference in the world. From our perspective, all the technologies that will make a significant difference in the future and their applications as well as the industries development were powered by science, such as artificial intelligence, data connection. Science must be instrumental to the nation’s long-term development and so it deserves continued attention.
In 2015, I reached out to many entrepreneurs and investors about my simple and pure idea. To my surprise, all of them shared the same ambitions of wanting to change the world through science, and so we really hit the ground running and got on the same page about establishing the Future Forum.
5 What role did New Alliance play in initiating Future Forum? How did it influence the enterprises’development?
In the run-up process, New Alliance leveraged over 10 years of experience in planning, executing，and handling communication related to political and economic exchange platform, utilizing its all of its resources in politics, business, and academy. The Future Forum got off the ground quickly and the Future Forum Founding Conference was successful at bringing the a cross-industry, non-profit platform of science communication bearing the dreams of humanity to the public.
At that time, as the initiator of the Future Forum, I went to the United States to invite Ray Kurzweil, the author of "The Singularity is Near," and a predictor in the field of artificial intelligence who foretold the development of 3D printing and virtual reality to attend the founding conference of the Future Forum where he could tell the Chinese people what the science was. In this way, the Founding Conference of the Future Forum was attended by experts in artificial intelligence including Ray Kurzweil, Wu Enda, a scholar in artificial intelligence and machine learning, and Ben Goertzel, then chairman of the American Conference on General Artificial Intelligence. The renowned guests from life sciences included Rao Yi, then chair professor of the School of Life Sciences at Peking University, and Shi Yigong, then Dean of the School of Life Sciences and Institute of Life Sciences and Medicine at Tsinghua University, and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, as well as Wang Xiaodong, Director of the Beijing Institute of Life Sciences. These great scientists made inspiring speeches at the Founding Conference of the Future Forum, bringing the media and audience closer to science.
What mattered much was that Mr. Zhang Lei, one of the initiators of Future Forum and founder of Hillhouse proposed to establish a science award of China. We all agreed that China needed such pioneering spirit to move forward its non-profit science cause. In 2016, we brought together many scientists and entrepreneurs to launch Future Science Prize, as China’s non-government Nobel Prize.
New Alliance, as the initiator and organizer of Future Forum, has been a part of the growth and success story of Future Forum and Future Science Prize. The success of all the events including the founding of Future Forum and Future Science Prize, Future Forum City Summit, Future Roundtable, Future lecture Series, Future Reception, YOSIA Webinar etc. proved the capabilities of New Alliance, which built on both the oriental and western management philosophies to develop a new development path in the new era with its accumulated resources in both business and academic communities. It witnessed the elites worked on creating a new world and made a huge difference in the world.
6 What features drive New Alliance forward in the past 20 years?
Benefiting others is always at the center of everything we do, from starting the business, setting up exchange platform between political and business communities, to creating non-profit platform of science. We believe benefiting others can bring benefits to ourselves. Only being ready to give can make us truly rich, like what we did for our partners and Future Forum did for the humanity.
What’s more, perseverance also held the key to New Alliance’s growth. The journey over the past two decades that has taken us here is filled with perseverance, resilience and courage. To survive, grow and pursue our dreams, we had our fair share of trials and tribulations, but we know adversity can only bring out the best in us--- as individuals and as a team. As we look back, all those moments of great difficulties are the essential lessons that we must build upon in our personal lives and in our company’s continuing development.
I believe the younger people will do better than us. It is their time now. Despite the our different backgrounds and upbringings, we share our humanity and the fact that each and every one of us has a dream. Our hard work and efforts will not go to waste when we turn our dreams into careers. We will not be swayed from the paths that we have chosen as we know we are in this for the long haul and we are fighting for our dreams.
7 How did you think about the building of talents pipeline?
Talents are at the heart of company’s development, which is also the philosophy of New Alliance. We respect every staff and treat them as family members by advocating sincere communication and life-long learning. Multi-level talents cultivation system has been put in place to improve their professional qualities, expertise and broaden vision. We aim to create an environment where every employee can grow and thrive.
We also hope every employee can figure out what they are willing to devote to in New Alliance and bring out the best in them to take on the mission of company’s innovative growth and deliver the spirit of benefiting others to co-workers and partners. New Alliance will also be there for them in the process of growth and development in this platform which connects the future.
8 What is the strategic development roadmap for New Alliance in the next five years?
In the past five years, New Alliance has built on the success of Future Forum and the abundant resources in scientific and technological innovation. In the next five years, New Alliance will continue to be guided by business philosophy of Think Global, Act Local to expanded its reach in Internet, finance, FMCG and logistics industries with business consulting, ecological cooperation and public relations management services. By doing so, it can develop into an enabler for enterprise growth from a communication and consulting company with financial sector at its core.