Big interview $775m Jane Jie Sun 1/3
The number of Trip executives who are women, a figure that rises to over 40% among middle managers and 50% at the
company overall.
Trip.com Group
The amount refunded to customers on any given day.
Eager to support partners elsewhere in the industry, Trip organised a ¥1bn fund to help small and medium-sized firms, and worked with banks to inject ¥10bn into travel at large. The third pillar of Trip’s recovery plan, for its part, looked inwards. Eager to keep her company balanced in rough economic waters, Sun offered to work for free until the industry recovered, while staff took pay cuts or limited their time in the office.
Sun emphasises that this last scheme – showing that executives like her were willing to make sacrifices for the greater good – helped Trip “retain talent in this very difficult time”. This thoughtful approach to leadership, in fact, is typical of how Sun runs her firm more broadly. As a female CEO in an industry dominated by men, Sun is obviously conscious of the need to “empower” the women leaders of tomorrow. That arguably begins before they’re even born. When a Trip employee becomes pregnant, they’re offered free taxi rides into the office. When their baby is born, they’re given a bonus.
This support even extends to getting pregnant, something Sun explains comes from personal experience. “When I had my first baby, I was below 35, so it was a regular pregnancy,” she says. “For my second baby, I was 36 when I gave birth. So I was classified as a high-risk pregnancy.” In other words, Sun continues, women have a unique biological clock – one that men crucially lack. With that in mind, Sun has developed a remarkably progressive system for women looking to build a family, paying staff to freeze their eggs. Apart from being unique in the tech industry, this approach has helped
Trip.com become one of the most equal workplaces in China or indeed anywhere else. Around a third of Trip executives are women, a figure that rises to over 40% among middle managers and 50% at the company overall. “This number is outstanding,” Sun says, especially if you compare Trip to the industry at large. Fair enough: according to one recent study, just 28.8% of American tech workers are women, a figure that drops to less than 10% among executives.
“I think this is not a European Dream, an American Dream or a Chinese Dream. It’s a dream for human beings.”
Visible with space
During the height of the pandemic, when travel bans were still the order of the day,
Trip.com made a surprising announcement: it was investing in an airline. Known as Sanya International Airlines, it’s due to be based out of Hainan, an island to the south of the Chinese mainland. Amid plans to turn Hainan into a
10
free-trade hub, Sanya could yet be another feather in Sun’s bonnet. And even if it fails, it’s clearly testament to Trip’s continued zeal after the pandemic. Beyond the ultimate success of the project – which still needs to be officially approved – it’s also useful for examining the current state of Chinese business more generally. Trip, after all, isn’t developing the airline alone. Rather, it’s teaming up with Hainan Province Transport Investment Holding, a state-owned body run by the local provincial government. This partnership isn’t particularly unusual. For years, Chinese officials have played a central role in the development of Chinese business, sometimes supporting, often cajoling, always with a hand hovering over the levers of corporate power. That’s especially true over the past few months, with President Xi Jinping announcing measures to regulate the economy and cut inequality. These changes are already being felt: e-commerce giant Alibaba recently accepted a $2.8bn fine for abusing its market position. Of course, there’s no reason to think that
Trip.com is in a similar boat. But it’s still worth asking: how does the CEO of such a cosmopolitan enterprise feel about doing business from Shanghai? Sun, for her part, is sanguine. She praises Beijing for creating a “transparent and fair” business environment, adding that it’s similar to moves regulating big tech in Europe and the US. That’s a reasonable point, even if Mark Zuckerberg is unlikely to mysteriously disappear for months on end, as recently befell Alibaba chairman Jack Ma after he made a speech attacking government regulators. At any rate, it seems clear that Sun is comfortable pitching her tent in the economic and political ferment of modern China. It might help that – work ethic and ambition aside – the CEO still finds space for herself. Despite getting into the office around 7am, and then staying up late to field calls from Europe and the US, she makes a point of running half marathons on the weekend – “just to make sure my energy level is there”. As the leader at a global travel company, meanwhile, Sun also ensures she actually sees the places advertised on her websites. “I’m very passionate to use travel as a bridge between China and the rest of the world,” she emphasises, explaining she takes her two children to see African villages and refugee camps in the Middle East. “No matter if you go to a very rich country or poor country, I feel people are very similar,” Sun adds. “We care about young people, for their good education. We care about the college students, for them to develop good career paths. We care about families, for them to have peaceful and prosperous lives. I think this is not a European Dream, an American Dream or a Chinese Dream. It’s a dream for human beings.” A nice sentiment – and probably a reassuring one as China builds our century in its image. ●
Chief Executive Officer /
www.the-chiefexecutive.com
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