Singling out the individual may appear out of keeping with the vogue for emphasizing the team. But in China, having the right individual on board is the most important factor in business success.
Take BZW. The British bank was a laggard in China until it hired Huan Guocang to head its investment-banking business. With the manner less of an investment banker than a professor, he has single-handedly put BZW in the top five in China-related business - whether by helping the China National Aviation Corp. (CNAC) to buy shares in Dragonair, doing equity placements for Shanghai Industrial or launching an IPO for Zhejiang Expressway. He is planning to launch the first dual listing in Shanghai and London for Zhejiang Southeast Electric Power, and intends to lead-manage CNAC's IPO too.
Born in Guangxi in 1949, Huan grew up in Shanghai and like many of his contemporaries spent several years farming during the cultural revolution before going to the US to study. His academic air is not feigned - he taught at Columbia University for three years. Nor did he start out in investment banking. His banking career began as an economist, first at Deutsche Bank in New York, then JP Morgan in Hong Kong.