No matter which MNC office you visit in China, most likely you will notice a common phenomenon: local employees are much younger than their counterpart at headquarters. Most local hires are in their 20's, some 30's, and very few over 40's. Very unlikely you will see anybody over 50 except janitors and cleaners. There are multiple reasons.
A former CPO at a Fortune 1000 company said, in order to manage China supply chains well, being bilingual is not enough; you have to be trilingual. We all know what bilingual means. So what is the third language?
We were helping a recent MBA graduate land a commodity manager job. His background is impeccable no matter what criteria you use: multiple years as the distribution manager for a Global 500 company, an expert in planning, logistics and warehousing, and MBA education from Arizona State University, a very top supply chain program in the nation. Furthermore, he is a rare trilingual candidate best suited for China supply chains: he speaks Chinese, English and the language of supply chain. This is evidenced by the interview opportunities he got: whenever companies came to campus, he was surely on the interview list. However, he seldom made the second round. Why?
