Big interview
Th the Sun e rise of
Much has been written about the rise of China, especially when it comes to business. Although luminaries like Ma Huateng and Lei Jun have enjoyed plenty of attention, Jane Jie Sun is arguably less famous. This is unfortunate. As a rare woman tech CEO, Sun has made
Trip.com Group into one of the biggest online travel fi rms around – even as she promotes remarkably progressive internal policies. Andrea Valentino chats to Sun to understand how her early career in America prepared her for her current role, how she faced the struggles of the pandemic head on, and why she thinks travel can offer deep insights wherever you end up.
I
’ve barely finished my hellos and Jane Jie Sun is already fizzing with purpose. She complains about the ban on Chinese tourists to the US, arguing the government needs to ease up restrictions. She quizzes me on my past trips to China, then invites me to visit. She waxes enthusiastically about how fast her country is changing, how Shanghai felt like a “totally new city” every time she returned from her old job in America. Sun does all this before I’ve asked my first question. Then she keeps it up for the next half an hour, quoting Confucius, musing on the female body clock, reflecting on the ethical benefits of touring refugee camps. The pace, in short, is frantic. But given what Sun represents, it also feels thoroughly appropriate. A CEO in the coming superpower of our century, a country that’s predicted to become the world’s economic engine by 2028, neither China nor Sun have time to spare. This is true in her own career too. The head of the
Trip.com Group since 2016, Sun has turned the Shanghai travel firm into a $30bn enterprise, recently selling another $1.1bn shares as if they were nothing. All the while, Sun has lifted her sights beyond her native land, snapping up rivals from Scotland to India, all while finding time to invest in an airline and run half marathons on the weekend.
If anything, this energy has proved doubly useful over the last year. Every CEO has been squeezed by the pandemic. But for a company built on open borders, lockdowns and travel bans could have been fatal. Yet here again, Sun has shown her worth, partnering with customers and businesses to emerge stronger than before. And while Beijing has recently begun to have second thoughts about firms like hers – liberal, globalised, essentially capitalist – Sun seems
8 Chief Executive Offi cer /
www.the-chiefexecutive.com
Trip.com Group
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