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Matthew Brosenne came to China in 1995 and joined China’s TV industry when it was still in its infancy. In 2013, this Old China Hand started a completely new career by joining an international head-hunting firm. With all his knowledge about China, Matthew thinks that, though China's economy has entered a “slow growth" phase, the demand for high-end labour is actually rising. In the future, Matthew suggests employees who have digital skills and know how to survive the “slow growth” will become increasingly popular.

2016 is the third anniversary of the CEIBS Global EMBA Class of 2011. During June and July, we will introduce stories from four 2011 graduates, to see the changes their CEIBS experiences have brought on their lives and careers. Matthew Brosenne is the fourth graduate. 

Matthew Brosenne

Executive Director

Russell Reynolds Associates

Global EMBA 2011

Born in Philadelphia, Hunter in China

In the 1990s, TV gradually became an indispensable part of people’s daily life in China. Mathew Brosenne, a young Philadelphian, made his expedition to China in 1995 and became the director of business development for what was then the most important TV audience research company in China — CSM. In the next 15 years, Matthew dedicated himself to this field. He learned and improved while witnessing all the big changes happening to the Chinese media industry.

Matthew has a rather special Chinese name, 白穆玄. He said that the name was given by his Chinese teacher. When Matthew first came to China, he took lessons with this teacher, who found Matthew always seemed serious (穆) and mysterious (玄) when thinking. But Matthew said this is just a beautiful mistake: he looked like that only because he could not understand a single Chinese word; and, even after two years of studies, he could still not buy an apple in Chinese by himself! 

Eventually, Matthew became fluent in Chinese and can now confidently state it as one of his main skills. For this reason, Matthew often represented the company to make speeches on various occasions when he was working for CSM.

Five years ago, after 15 years in that role, he started thinking about how to climb higher in his career and decided to attend a business school. After careful comparison, he finally chose CEIBS Global EMBA course. Surprisingly, Matthew's career path did not follow his original plan: he did not become a manager, nor move to a client's company, but instead stepped into a completely new field — Human Resources, and started working as a head-hunter in an international job hunting company (Russell Reynolds Associates).

"My personality is a hybrid: most of the time, I follow the status quo; but my 'spirit of challenge' wakes up every 20 years, at which point I become eager for changes in my life." Matthew said that his two life-changing decisions were made for this exact reason. Nowadays, Matthew becomes very excited when talking about head-hunting. Though he entered this field mid-career, he is now adept at his job and enjoys it.

Besides his career, Matthew has also built his family in China. He married a girl from Tianjin and they now have a child. For Matthew, 白穆玄 is no longer a name, but his identity. Therefore, every time he recalls his years in China, he will feel grateful to this country.

As economic growth slows down, the demand for high-end labour will rise

Besides the aspiration to change, another reason for Matthew to step into the head-hunting field was the promising stage of this industry. The China market has moved from a "fast-growth" to a “slow growth" phase. Thus, the market's need for labour has also changed. Matthew suggested that, during this time of economic transformation, professional human resource companies such as Russell Reynolds actually have more room for development.

Matthew's judgement has been proven correct. His company has seen profit rise in recent years, with ongoing expansion.

"After 30 years of fast growth, the China market has fostered a large number of high quality employees. However, the speed of increase of this group still can’t keep pace with that of economic growth. For Chinese private and multi-national companies, there is still a lack of high quality labour."

Matthew analysed the reasons behind this phenomenon. 

First, for any company but especially multi-nationals, China is one of the — if not the — most important markets in the world. These companies all hope to understand this market and find people who are adapted to it.

Second, the rise of Chinese private companies has created massive demand for labour. Furthermore, they are now facing the challenge of structural transformation which also stimulates the need for high-end employees. 

Without doubt, most of these private companies grew with the first big tide of China's economy. These companies worked by setting sales and performance goals, but management problems started to creep in, such as incomplete management mechanisms, organisational deterioration, rights-sharing disputes, and division of senior teams. Therefore, once these private companies reach a certain scale, they cannot use their old tricks to go further, but need help from professional managers. The same applies to those state-owned companies undergoing transformation — they also need high-end employees.

Furthermore, most Chinese managers have a strong entrepreneurial spirit, meaning we often see good managers resigning from their jobs to start their own businesses. Once this happens, they become the employers demanding high-end employees. The rapid growth of PE and VC in China in recent years also contributed to the rise of start-ups, which has affected the Chinese labour market.

The future is for those who are comfortable with “slow growth” and familiar with digital skills

So what kind of "high-end" employees do these transforming companies want? Matthew found that, though different companies seem to have different requirements, there is one common need: they wish to hire those who know how to push ahead steadily in this “slow growth" economy.

"In the past, speed was the name of the game. You could prove yourself by acting fast. However, people have gradually realised the damage hyper-growth can bring. Chinese companies now need people who can think deeply, carefully and accurately. They need to make and test more assumptions before carrying out real actions." Matthew said that these kind of people are still rare in China even after 30 years of fast economic growth: "People who know the way to survive in a ‘slow growth' economy are all in the West. They are either foreigners, or Chinese who have experience working in mature markets."

But this does not mean that this skill cannot be learnt. Matthew said that for those aspiring to learn this skill set, overseas assignments are incredibly helpful. Any market that is mature outside of China will give the exposure needed to develop thinking, strategy and execution needed to be successful in this manner. An ideal opportunity for Chinese employees would be with a Chinese enterprise in western markets. Even working in more mature product categories in China would deliver that type of experience.

Besides this skill, Matthew says that companies are also looking tirelessly for "e-employees". Digital cuts across everything today, consumers and companies are just learning how to behave in an increasingly digital world. Though this requirement now is more obviously present in sales for e-commerce and marketing for digital marketing, it exists in manufacturing and every part of the supply chain value chain.

Therefore, Matthew predicted that all positions related to digital appear to have a long period of potential. In other words, for professionals, it's not about what jobs have potential it's about how you enable yourself to add value in the digital future. Therefore, he suggested all professionals to think about what these positions would be and what they need to do to be equipped to do those jobs well.

Lastly, Matthew said that companies and employees actually choose each other. When companies recruit high-end employees with the hope that they can be loyal to the organisation, they should also make themselves a platform for the latter to show their skills and talents. Companies should quickly make employees accept them, so they can do their best and get enough experience to improve. In a word, mutual-gain is the best way.

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