谢霆锋香港科技大学演讲英文

 MC: Welcome to the Asian Leadership Series. My name is Karen, from the department of management. And I’m your MC for this evening. Some of you may wonder how this talk come about, actually it is through a conversation between your case manager and myself, about how much we want to find a young successful Asian business leader, someone who all our undergraduate students can relate to. And the hostess said,” well, Karen, have you heard of or told about the founder of Post Production Office Limited, Nicholas Tse(以下简称NIC)?” And I said,” perfect!” So, with the tremendous supporting from the Post Production Office Limited, so here we are, delivering to you our first Asian Leadership Series. So, thank you very much for coming! So, since this talk is especially for you students to hold event is going to be hosted by students. So, the format is this:

    The first 20 minutes or so Mr. Nicholas Tse is going to share some of his experience and insights with us, and that will be followed by an about 45 minutes chatting session between the 3 students interviewers and Mr. Nicholas Tse, and then we’ll be round up by a 15 minutes Q&A session.

    So, may I now invite the 3 students’ interviewers, Jocelyn, Mandy, and Nathan to the floor, please?

    So, before we officially kick off the event, just to friendly remainder of some simple house rules.

    First, can you please switch your mobile phone to silent mode? And secondly, no laptop, computer, no live recording. And third, I understand everyone is very excited, but please remain seated during the event. And last but not least, if you want to leave the lecture theatre during the event, can you please use the door at back.

    So, without further ado, may I invite Professor Roger King(以下简称R), director of the Centre for Business Case Studies? And he himself, a highly successful business leader, to kick off the event.

R:  Thank you all! It’s really a great great honor and privilege for HKUST to have Mr. Nicholas Tse here. First of all, I would like to also thank our President Tony to be here, and our Dean Brandon Chan, and of course many other honored guests. But most importantly, you students. I think this is probably one of the biggest events we’ve ever had. Just want you to know, Nicholas, when the registry opened and within hours, it was totally full. In fact, this room only holds 400 people, within a day and a half, we have 1700 people signed up. And clearly, they didn’t come to see Tony, nor me. But, anyway, I want to say a few words about our Case Centre, ok, and many of you may or may not be aware of it, we have a Case Centre here in HKUST’s business coup, which is relatively new. And let me just tell you why we have to started this thing. It was actually the encouragement of our Dean, and basically most of you probably aware of the notion of the case study itself. For those of you who may not understand, or haven’t had the chance, case study actually bring in real-life business situations into classroom by writing cases on that company usually. And, but we also back it up with theory, and allow students to actually analysis the situation itself. So by having said that, there are a lot of other schools particularly Harvard, Ivy League and many other schools do write cases. So, why should we do writing cases? Well, one of my colleagues Professor Pang here, and, what we did as before I said to Leonard,” yes, we will do this”, because he asked me to do it on a proposal base I might say. So I said,” well, before we actually do this, let’s take a survey and understand what are we currently do in our school, and who uses case method.” And so we did was we actually took a survey for all the faculty members that are teaching the MBA program itself. Ok… And what we discovered was first of all at the encouragement of the Dean, we actually had 2/3 of the faculty responded to the survey over 66%. And what was discovered was that students actually like classes that have cases in it. No.1. They gained higher scores for class that had… that… So, for those of you who are teaching, this is great news. The second thing is that they actually like the professor that’s teaching it. And the third thing was… How can we always study western company cases? Why don’t we have more Asian cases? And, therefore, our main main focus is now on Asian. In fact, my colleagues and I as well have now coined the concept---Asian cases by Asian for Asian. Now, it’s not to say that someone from Harvard they ask for a case we don’t give it to them. But I would hope that in a few years, they would actually come to us and ask for cases. Why? Because a Harvard professor their thinking-classes is very very western. They don’t really understand how businesses are conducted in this part. And hence that’s our primary goal here. And we are also very very lucky that many of our faculties now have been supporting the concept itself, and in fact, even though 10-year system in the school don’t necessarily recognize those centres involved in writing cases or even teaching cases. But we are moving along that long. So this is the purpose of that. And in fact many our cases we are able to invite honored guest to come, but more importantly in the classroom sometimes. And I recall one of my cases, the individual that came to the class, this is the person that actually in the case itself. He said to me,” Roger, you know what? This is great! I’m getting so many good suggestions from students, in fact, it’s the cheapest consulting service I’ve ever had.” So, you know, the whole idea is you need to participate for you students in this room. And it’s a great great opportunity to analysis real-life situations. So, I’m sure again that you’re not here because you want to listen to me. So, it gives me great pleasure and Nicholas really needs no introduction, but here today he’s coming as a entrepreneur, a business he’s founded several years back when he was only, guess how old? 22! That was only yesterday, right? And he has a very very successful business. He has an office here in Hong Kong of course, as well as Shanghai. I understand. Right. So, without further ado, I would like to invite Nicholas to come up. That’s not for me, right?

NIC：Hello! Thank you for the warm welcome. And… Ladies and gentlemen welcome and thank you for having me on campus. This is truly overwhelming. Really. I’m instructed to deliver a speech in English. So, therefore I will be speaking in English. But, if any of you prefer to speak in Cantonese or Mandarin, please feel free to do so. I do hope that at the end of the session, both parties you and I will gain something out of it, and leave behind somewhat, kick-ass memory, all right?

      Wow, this is really intense right now, for me, really. Maybe because this is my first time to show up as an entrepreneur in front of the crowd. What is very odd is that, I’ve been doing this most of my life. I have been giving speeches and performances, and talks around the world. The crowds ranging from 30 people to 130,000 people, but never have been so uptight and nerve-racking. Maybe it’s because I am simply put in front of a crowd of academics, and I am not actually out of my…I do feel I am talking to another caliber; I am left out.

      So, the first point is really to tell you I dropped out of school in grade 10. And I urge you really to go through your education. Most of you I think have gone half way, right? Might as well go all the way and grad that piece of paper! If I had the chance to take all the wealth and so-called fame and glory that I have right now, and buy back 15 years of life, but keep the knowledge that I have now, and relieve the physique I had 15 years ago and trade place with you right now, I would make that trade in a heartbeat. Really.

      I dropped out school when I was…maybe in grade 10, and ever since I set put into the so-called business world, there has not been a day that has gone by without me hating myself regretting that I did not fully commit to my education. Maybe fine arts, agriculture, architecture, ceramics? Who knows? I don’t know… MBA. But, I dropped. And every day that has gone by, I do regret. Some of you may not feel it right now, but, that diploma when you are trying to close a deal with someone, it means just much more. When you are trying to convince someone to an idea, concept, something new, that piece of paper will just mean that much more, and people will judge you and they’ll doubt you that much less. That is reality, and it has been hard for me. But…so I think I’m here to hopefully convince you to go through, go to the education, go all the way, grab that piece of paper before you leave, Ok? Do not walk the path I’ve ever gone through.

      So for the people who did not know, I have been running a so-called postproduction business for the past 9 years. And that’s what I do apart from the acting or the singing part, the entertainment part. That’s also the business part of Nicholas Tse. We are based on Hong Kong right now, we have a sub branch in Shanghai, and it’s going very well. We’re going to open in Beijing in the end…hopefully the end of May. Can I say that, please? Because we are in a rush and everything is really…so I’m looking at my colleague whether we can pull it off at the end of May.

      When I say post production it’s actually to a lot of people a very foreign term. So, what is post production? Post-production is… I mean by audio dubbing, online editing, offline editing, compositing animation, computer graphics…all that good stuff. Actually, everything you see right now on television, advertising was, or in the cinema, or even on the Internet, every visual image you see right now is actually…it has…it should have undergone the process of post-production in order to achieve a certain standard of broadcast quality. And just by saying that I’m very very happy to say that it has already obvious very high demand, or else I will not here today. And so…for a more visual explanation of what I do, I would like to show the company reel, and… There are some of the brands that we do represent in Hong Kong or in the mainland China right now. Some of you may recognize or may not recognize it, ok?

      Thank you. That’s some these brands that we represent at the moment. But…what you have just seen is the pretty side of the production. I would actually like to show you some of the before and after, as to actually how we make a living. So what I’m about to show you, is a…something called the Canon G12 model. It is an advertisement shot 2 years ago by a very famous crew. But, why don’t I show you?

      Here you see in front of the green screen, just a…it’s merely a model holding a camera. And all it is…I’m sorry, it’s just actually a track back show of this model. It’s not quite up to the entertaining part… This is the source that we got when we first accepted this project. We have taken the initiative to talk to the producer and director and say…hey, why don’t we do something more interesting and something that is to the next level…graphic wise and so…can we please show the next layer? So, with video and visual enhancement, each layer by layer, you can see that inch by inch…this is what we do to enhance the visual effect…for the outcome… After 1,160 and some more layers, and modeling put onto this image, you got the finished product…that’s it! All right, that’s the one fuller version or finished version. There you have it. And that’s what we do for a living, for people do not know, post-production…that’s we do.

      And so… Any question so far? Why don’t I ask you a question? Who in here wants to be successful? Raise your hand if you wanna succeed. Cause I sure as hell do, what preventing you from raising hand? Anyway, second question, and the more important one: who’s lying? Because I’m pretty sure you go out there and you ask people” who wants to successful”, 99% of people would tell you: I want to succeed. I want to be the best basketball player; I want to be the best hockey player; I want to be the best artist, engineer, whatever… They will talk. But most of you want to succeed, but are you truly being honest to yourself? Whereas you found your passion, you know your strength and weakness? When to place yourself in the market, how you want people to see you and how to project yourself in a market? I found this company, because…at the age of 22 and 23, between that time, I was on set, on a movie set. And, I saw the director go up to the CG computer graphics guy in the department and ask them,” could we…actually, I wanna do these…take the computer graphic image and do this…” And, he hesitated, froze, and I thought: wow… So, that stalled for may be an hour or so… But, ticking, tick, tick, tick, all that is money. And he called back to his headquarters and asks for the allowance to say,” They want to do this and that, so can we please…” After days of freezing, multi-million dollars was lost during that process. And at that time, I was releasing a lot of music videos; I was doing a lot concerts, advertisements, and movies. I wanted to enhance the visual effects myself, and I thought: wow, this should be our realm. That’s our profession, why are we doing so poor in it? So then, if some of you have read through, may have read through my interviews, that I did sell my property for a certain amount of money to invest in this business. I started off with 4-6 people, and I bought 1 or 2 second-hand machines to start it off. And, luckily, I am here today. But, what message I wanna get through is it seems like Nicholas Tse gambled everything away for the future. I didn’t. It is a gamble, but…before I bought those second-hand machines, I actually calculated and talked to a few producers and we signed contracts for 3 movies, 2 advertisements, and 3 music videos, so that we’d cover my one and a half years overhead, ahead of time. So if I was to fail, I somewhat had a safety net that I won’t just kill myself because I sold my house, sold everything what I have left. So, I did have a bit of safety net. I don’t want to give the wrong message out to the public that…” He just sold everything, so we can do that too.” Please do not, ok? So, when I was saying be honest to yourself if you want to be successful, because some of us say we want to be successful, we don’t wanna succeed more than we wanna sleep; we don’t wanna succeed more than we look cool, and go to the curiosity tonight; we don’t want to succeed more than hanging out with friends, going to the cinema. You must be honest to yourself and find your automatic passion. So, therefore, are you willing to sacrifice all these temptations to prevent you from practicing your art? I don’t believe the saying of “practice makes perfect”. To me, there is no perfection; there should always be room for improvement. Practice to me, practice makes permanence. You will only have a much higher probability not to mess thing up, but there is no perfection. That’s to me. So… Any questions so far? These 3 guys are actually really intimidating right now. Because it feels like that at any moment they’re gonna chuck some intellectual question like ninja’s darts. (Boy: This is the question from us. You basically answered about half of questions already.) Because the angle you sitting, the angle you sitting…

Girl 1: So, really thanks for your brief introduction and warm welcome to today’s Asian Leadership Series again. So just before our conversation begin, would you prefer us to call you NIC or just Nicholas? (NIC: Yes.) Ok, so, uh, NIC, as we know that you have established a very successful company, and we know, we have saw a sample work from Canon. And, we want to know what is the greatest challenge when you starting up your company.

NIC: The greatest challenge really is to earn trust of clients at the age of 23, because it is a human natural instinct, not to believe in someone 10 or 20 years younger than you, and to establish that trust is a reputation. But that together, it takes time. And we started offer really miniature size work and earn the trust of some directors, and said,” You know, are you guys really to go to the next level?” I personally say yes. But then what I’ve learnt is that saying yes doesn’t mean anything. Because no one wants to fall and it is a cruel world out there. People will start blaming stuff, and say,” Well, NIC, he screwed it up, it’s not me.” So, what I’ve done, what I change to these years is I don’t say yes any more. I go back and ask my team,” Do you think you can do this? And, if so, why don’t we do a 30seconds demo to shut their mouth?” Period. So, the hardest part, the hardest challenge is to…I think for any business is to earn the trust. Actually, mentioning that, I myself, I…ever since I was little, I love Hong Kong action movies. And I still do, I really do, it’s all my passion. Being honest to myself, I can tell you, I love action movies, and I am willing to put my life on the line, literally if it takes and to protect Hong Kong action. So, 10 years ago, I made myself a little promise that if I’m gonna be in this business, I wanna…I wanna be an action star, whose at least participate in one of Jack Cheng’s cool movie, or the Jet Li’s or the Donnie Yen movies. And, I will show you this, actually, it’s more a present to my son, it’s a 2 minutes video for his first birthday. Some of my favorite stunts. Please do not try this at home, because what you’re about to see for the next 2 minutes, I have been training for 12 years, and a lot of luck is involved. That’s why I am saying practice only makes permanence. Because the more I do this in this chance, I will die. Jumping off the 41st floor is never wise, but I did that 19 times. Yeah, and that was only one or two feet away from breaking my neck.

      That’s the Convention Centre. It’s funny they say you can put these paddings on, but whatever you hit, it never hits the pad, it hits you.

      Now I tell you my son will not understand this message for another 20 years. Thank god I’m still here one piece, but that’s how far I’m willing to go for what I love. Of course, I am not asking you to go jump off buildings.

Boy: I’ve actually seen this video about ten times. (NIC: Really?) Yeah! It still gives my goose bumps every time I watch it. It’s very emotionally touching but shifting the focus on these students, and you have definitely found your passion, but now would you advise us for finding our dreams and our passions?

NIC: Like I said, I think be honest to yourself… No, I don’t think anyone can answer that question for you. It’s what you feel every day. You have to live with it, you have to smell it, you have to feel it, you have to touch it, it’s everything around you, something that never bores you I guess. If you are hesitating for something, give it a second thought. But I am here mainly to trial and error, and I guess that’s part of life. You only start losing things when you start growing. But that’s contradictive, philosophical part of life. So, like when we 12, we are so eager to be 18, and say that I am old enough to stay up, I am old enough to go clubbing, I am old enough to click the porn button. But, but when we do get older like I am now, we lose the standard, we started losing a lot of reflexes, speed, power, all of that. Then, we start treasuring stuff. But, what you love the most, ask yourself, I don’t think anyone can really tell that question or the answer.

Girl 1: Well, but like sometimes if we find our own dream, we may not follow, like we cannot listen to our heart, because…our social norms, or expectation from our parents. So what if I… Can you give us students on really pursuing on your dream and stick to your mind?

NIC: I don’t think anyone…unless your dream is something that is so destructive that you’re hurting someone else, I don’t think anybody would stop you from pursuing your dream, right? If it’s something constructive, or something we don’t normal, I would say it should be ok, you are not trying to kill someone. And make a statement, that’s what I did in my stunts. You know, I didn’t just go about talking to the director saying, I wanna do action movies, someone jump off, I trained. And I start going little stunts, I started to train weapons, my fitness, the whole thing, it has to start from scratch. So you want to prove someone wrong, prove them wrong.

Girl 2: Regarding this as Asian Leadership Series for you, we invite you to talk about your passion, your leadership experience. Then what do you think is the one key leadership quality that you think is the most important to you to success?

NIC: One of the most important leadership qualities, I think is to know yourself and to place the correct people in the correct position. You know, really, after I’ve started this company, a lot of people say, they ask me, right to the point,” What the hell, do you know about post-production?” And, to be honest, if you ask me to sit in front of a multi-million dollar machine and ask me to…will I do as well as my staff? I will not, I will fall, I will crash. But, I don’t know how many of you follow football, but…for example, let’s say, last night Chelsea and Manchester United play a game, all right? See, we’ve got people’s reactions now. The manager of Manchester United, Mr. Ferguson, he is not going on the field doing corner kicks and free kicks or saving the ball, he is placing the correct people in the correct position. If Rooney scored a goal, is it purely Rooney’s glory that he scored the goal? Or was it also because Mr. Ferguson placed him in the correct position, so he had the chance to be assisted then to score? So I think to place correct people in correct position to do their work, do the jobs and to inspire, to dedicate to yourself, your work and your staff, all that together, I think it’s good.

Boy: Speaking of your human resources, cooperation, we have about 350 students sitting here today, and they might just happen to be interested to applying for your company.

NIC: Feel free, please, please, please!

Boy: Just maybe! Just maybe! But now, so, for qualities of your employees, what’s your specific quality of your employees you’ll be looking for?

NIC: Creative thinking. And, uh, because in a business like ours, it’s imperative, that every job is unique, we cannot duplicate jobs. Actually I’m not quite happy with my business model, because of that, because it makes very tough, whereas…we’re not in a job, where robots and machines can just keep printing and make money of that product. Each job is unique. So when I look for people in our staffs, I look for creative thinking, motivation, energy, that they want to bring into the image, and of course technique, and maybe some inborn sense or talents.

Girl 1: You have many staffs in your company, so how do you encourage creative thinking in your company?

NIC: We have over 130 staff now, and after opening Beijing, we might raise the number a lot. I actually, I participate in their daily routine of their lives. It might surprise you, but actually sometimes I cook for them, I make them desserts. Some of you may have read on newspapers, we just had, just went a pretty fancy vacation. Do you have the video here? Ok! I gained weight.

Girl 2: That’s a very amazing trip. As we seen from the video, we know that you actually have a very good relationship with your employees, your workers. I am wondering what’s your company’s philosophy regarding work? Do you often go to like overseas trip with your employees every…?

NIC: Yes, I do. Yes, I do. I try to participate as much as I can. And trips like this is very good to come by these days and I am not just throwing a multi-million dollar trip for them and say,” Hey, you know, take this, go and enjoy yourself.” You got to be part of it, you got to be live through their eyes, see what they are going through, solve the problem before it actually hits the rock. And before the collision starts, solve the problem, and you will earn the utmost respect. The different I think between a world class company and mediocre company…if you are feared…your staffs only work as hard as to do not get fired. But, if you are respected, not only will you have staff, you have a team. Not only you have the team, you have an army. And they’ll go that extra mile, they will push that extra mile for you, for the company. And that is the difference between a world class company and…just…that’s not bad.

Girl 1: You’ve mentioned earlier that trust is important in your company, so how do you build trust with your employees among Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong?

NIC: We have a…we actually take turns. We send some of our senior partners and our senior engineer up to mainland China, and we trained new people. Our business is actually very creative and human based business, whereas we need a lot of people. That’s whereas the nest challenge for me lies is to find people like you, who are young, who have potential to enhance better graphics, and have that motivation to say,” I can take this up to the next level.” I think the whole business is…I think the whole world is asking for people like you right now. Steven Spielberg in 2011, last year, and now he’s decided he is gonna dump in 1.5 billion dollars into Shanghai doing post-production in Dream Works. And to me, yes, that’s scary, that’s a big pressure. But I’m happy that…just to know that there’s such a high demand, so therefore…supply is also needed, so…

Boy: Could you explain to us your vision standard of your company?

NIC: We, or I, myself, I hope to…I really hope to give something back to the society in terms of visualize since I’ve been in this entertainment business for over 14 years now. I want to give something back to what is being broadcasted, and to…this is my time to but re-educate the next generation, my kids, to know what is a better quality, look at Korea, look at Japan, we have always been following the footsteps of their images. I think it’s time for us and that’s why we are here today for Asian Leadership to tell the western people that,” Hey, I can tell you right now, that if you want Nicholas Tse to do Titanic 3D, I can do it, just give me that time and give me that preparation. Post-production alone cannot make a piece of blank paper into magic, we need the whole process off pre-production along with us to merge and do together, and then we can… I’m pretty sure that we can achieve 3D Titanic. Don’t think that we can’t do it. We can! But ultimately…I’m looking for education. If there’s a kid like me, a random kid like me in Hong Kong, that wants to learn about animation or that likes to play video games, I’m sure a lot of you do. You have different angles and visions of things that people don’t have. So times that by the number of the population in the whole mainland China, only if 1 percent of mainland China people wanted to learn animation or post-production, that would mean 130 million students. How can we do not do 3D Titanic? I’ll do 8D Titanic.

Boy: We’re already talked about your vision and we’ve also talked about how you build trust with your employees. How do you ensure that you share the vision from different offices in Shanghai, in Hong Kong, or in Beijing?

NIC: Each year I gave annual speech to them, and so far I’m very very thankful to say that we have reached each year’s goal. We have moved from…our office was in a basement, a building in Causeway Bay, last year before April 2nd, and after April 2nd we moved to a quite luxurious building right now, in Cubu’s No.1, 5 storey building. And…what is means, each year we are meeting our goals. And then, 2 years ago, I announced that we are the first company to cross border with mainland China to have a sub branch in Shanghai and in Hong Kong. And we have achieved that goal, and within a year, I’m very proud to announce that we are going to open in Beijing, which is no other company, post company has done in the history of Hong Kong. So, for the staff, I always tell them I’m not asking you to work for me, I’m asking you to work for yourself. And it is important to make them feel like that they are at home, they want to go to work, and they see their future. Not I am only getting the salary paid,” Wow, this guy is actually…he’s making every promise come true.” And for then, that’s so important because they are not…everything is coming true, and they see further. And I think that is very important for everyone.

Girl 2: Working in creative media industry, I suppose there could be some divergent opinions amongst you work. When you actually face such type of situation, how would you settle those disagreements?

NIC: Well, you know, post –production is really a passive, sadly to say, very passive business. We…for the past maybe few hundred years, I think post-production is to do what we are ordered to do by the producers or the directors of people who shoot these commercials. But we have managed somewhat to turn it around, to take the initiative…to actually go to the meeting with the directors, and say,” Is this what you are trying to achieve or what are you trying to achieve? Why don’t we go this way?” so now, we are participating more into the pre-production to ensure that we’ll get good quality out of the post-production. That’s mainly what we do.

Girl 2: Has there ever been a time when other companies try to steal employees from you? Since I guess, there could be some intense competition to get the tight talents.

NIC: Yes, there has been. And I think it was about 5 or 6 years ago. One of our competitors was willing to pay 5 times the payroll for 20 of my staff to walk away from my company. I’ll tell the truth, I mean, 5 times the payroll…I myself will think twice. But out of 20 people, only one left. I don’t blame anybody for leaving; they must have their own reasons. But I am very proud to say that we kept 19 of them. And I did ask why, I said so…really, you know, why are you staying? What is it that makes you stay in my company? I am not paying you any more than other people. And they replied simply that,” We are happy when we are here…we feel like home. We know how to bring a smile to our work.” That actually shocked me quite a bit on how the new generation values their life today. Not only do they wish for a high salary, but they need to be represented loved, cared for and feel this is out home. There was a one when we were moving to our new company actually, I called on a vacation, I said,” Guys, stop today, we are not gonna work.” They said,” What are we gonna do?” I said,” We are gonna go look for our mew office together.” And they were actually quite shocked. And the whole army of us just, you know, we were strolling through all these buildings. And they asked,” Why are we looking at this?” “Because you are the ones who are gonna be sitting here 8 hours per day, not me. I want you to feel like you are at home. I want you to wake up and feel motivated to say,’ I want go back, and fix that, I think I can do better.’” These little things accumulate to a better crew.

Girl 1: That’s really inspiring. So it is inevitable that there are ups and downs in our life. So, how do you stay positive?

NIC: Uh, stay positive. I consider myself very lucky, and we all should, all this you have right now is really a privilege. I remind myself that every day, the fact that I am just alive, you know, those crazy stunts…I am thankful. I just keep reminding myself that every day, as simple as that.

Boy: As a final question to wrap up from us three. What is the most important message you want us to take from this Asian Leadership Series?

NIC: You know all this is great, and I don’t know how you feel. Thank you for all this warm welcome. But all this 谢霆锋，Nicholas Tse stuff, right? I am not asking any of you to totally embrace this guy’s personality or the way he works, or the way he does his job, not to replicate or duplicate, but to find yourself or pick up from this guy, what is useful to you and your lifestyle, and make compatible and find yourself. So, from me, I hope that you can find a little bit of use, to put into you lifestyle and create your own dreams. Because my dream is to make believe believable, and I’ll keep on doing that for a long long time.

Boy: Although I said that was a final question, I do have another one. Uh…you’re actually mentioned a lot of qualities, you talk about being charismatic. How you lead your team? How you make them like you? Or you don’t make them like you, they just like you. You talk about bringing them to different places, so what are some really important leadership qualities that a leader must have?

NIC: Well, another one I would say is to…set an example. You can talk all you want. I can talk about stunts as I want. But when you are really put under the spotlight, and you don’t know your stuff. I don’t care how much you talk, you can talk forever, but can you make that jump? If you have been training for it, you can. But that for me is an ultimate test. Whereas in business I may lose money, I may loss a job or two. But there, if I was not really honest to myself, I would lose a leg, I would lose an arm, and I would lose my life. So, uh, it’s…it’s knowing your staff, like I said again, practice makes only permanence.

Boy: Thank you very much for sharing with us today. Thank you for really encourage our students to pursue our own dreams, our passions, and although we’ve asked quite a few questions. I’m sure the audiences here have many more questions to ask you. So, we will now give the question to the floor. Just as a reminder, today’s section is focus on entrepreneurship, leadership…this is important. Keep in mind that today’s section is focus on entrepreneurship, leadership and management, so questions fall out of these categories will not entertained. Originally, we had about 20 minutes for Q/A sections, so please keep your questions brief and to the point. If they drag on for too long, I’m sorry, but I’m gonna cut your short and I’m gonna get the questions from some other students. So, please be respectful to the audience. Just another thing, when we hand you the microphone, after asking a question, please pass it back to the staff members. So other people can get a chance. Thank you for attention and we will now start taking questions.

S 1: Hi, Nicholas, very nice to see you here. Actually we all know you as a very successful actor and singer…am I right… instead of being an entrepreneur. So, I just want to ask, how did you great fame affect your occupation, your business. Is there any negative effect? Because there must some negative effects. Thank you very much.

NIC: That is an awesome question! You know, I was gonna say about the category that the questions are gonna come by. I was gonna say if anyone was gonna asking for an autograph, I would sign you the autograph if you can ask me a question that was a starter. Because after all we’re all in the study of MBA, do why not study in negotiating. But I like that question…yes, I did not launch to the public that I had this company, that I have this company until April 2nd last year. So I have been actually going undercover for 7 years, and it has been really hard, that’s actually what I forgot to mention, it is another challenge for me to be such low-key. And to still participate in the company and why I kept it a secret was because I just thought if I really wanted to prove myself as an entrepreneur. First, I do not want to use my fame, so-called fame to assist it. And also I do think that would actually harm it in a way, because the press just gonna eat me up,” He is another so-called actor who is trying to do a business.” But how successful am I, really? I myself want the real answer, and therefore I kept it a secret. And I hoped my client are coming in because that they know they can rely on PO and rely on me as the CEO, but not as… “Oh, I’m gonna give him a better credit because he just participated in my action movie.” No, I did not want that. It has been painful sitting in the office, seeing all these people, all the directors come by and say,” Oh, you. Hey, you’re here for?” ”I’m here for dubbing…” “Uh, oh, you’re here again.” “I’m still here for dubbing…” I have been going there for 8 years, and then than whoever’s up there that’s looking after me. Then last year I can present to the public that this is my company.

Boy: And they completely thought that you were dubbing for 8 years?

NIC: You think I’m mad? Yeah, it’s true.

Boy: Any other questions?

S 2: Hi, Nicholas, and my name’s Jonny. And I know that you were doing really great at the age of 22 in the entertainment industry. I wanna know that motivated you to establish the post-production at the age of 22? Cause you were enjoying a lot of fame and money, so you should have sacrificed quite a lot, so what motivated you to establish the company? Thank you.

NIC: Like I mentioned before that little crisis I saw on set with the movie things with the hesitation, with the post-production. I was quite upset and ultimately I do want to give something back to the society, and say, I hope in the near future. Well, a lot of times when I was trying to sell a concept or an idea for my own music video back to the time, I was always banned. I was always given the answer saying,” You can’t do that.” “Why?” “That’s too expensive and we don’t have the technology, we’ve got to go to Hollywood for that.” I said,” Really? Well, Korea just did one quite similar; I don’t think they went to Hollywood for it.” I was, you know, I was pissed off, that we are relying so much on the western technology. Whereas we have, to be honest, ever today we have exact same machinery that they do; it’s just the culture that is different. What’s the difference between Brazilian soccer and China soccer? We got the same balls, right? But it’s the culture that they live it, they breath it, you know, each kid is…all they have is a soccer ball and they play it every day, like our badminton, it’s the same. It’s different in culture but I wanted to make a difference, I wanted to make a statement.

Boy: Yeah, go ahead.

S 3: Mr. Tse, was there ever a time you want to…like you felt yourself drifting away from the business, like when you company wasn’t doing well and as a start-up I guess it’s very tough looking for projects and clients. And how do you take time off your acting work to spend time to your company? And was there ever a time you felt like giving up or just very tired of this whole thing?

NIC: No, I have not. And I do feel tired sometimes as do my stuff, but as much as we love our jobs… No, we have never thought that you know…there’s not a second that has slipped by my mind that I would give up this business. Because I believe, simply I believe. And I see it’s a very logical business, China last year became the third most movie-productive country in the world. First being India, second being the States, third is China. We made 716 movies last year that’s almost 2 movies per day. How much post-production is needed, if that much of hours of movies are made each day. It’s very logical business, if so much pre-production is made then there must be space for post-production. And I don’t doubt at all, I see a great future in this business.

Boy: The lady in front.

S 4: Hi! You have mention about the challenges your company had before. How about the great success of your company?

NIC: It’s doing ok. I really don’t dare to say it’s anything right now, it’s nothing compare to a lot of my idols like DreamWorks or Pixar. But we’re getting there, and I do believe that if no one’s gonna start it off it might be me. So we’re trying, we’re trying.

S 5: Hi, Nicholas. You have been great successful in different areas, like you’re a very good actor and entrepreneur. So, how do you manage your time so well, like you must be very busy, right?

NIC: I have to get this credit to my staff. A lot of time, I’, not in mainland China, all over the places, and we have established a trust, and a kind of a harmony that we are in sync. We know what we want to achieve. So, yes, I give all the credit to me staff. When I am not here, they would make the harsh decisions and we’re through the Internet, we will communicate. And we’re just obeying our rules.

Boy: The guy in shirt at back.

S 6: Hi, Nicholas! I’m called Nicholas as well, and I hope I will be as successful as you one day. So we all know about your glory and success. And I would like…I’m curious about what mistakes have you done before for you as a leader. And what have you done to rectify your mistake as a leader? Thank you.

NIC: I…I like that question, it’s hard… I have a tendency of rush. As to all kids should, actually maybe when they’re 22 or 23, right? We kind of rush into things. And when I first started this business, I did not go all the way to know it each and every part of department of how they run the business, or I had…I had the picture of it. But then it came to the part where I had to buy really expensive machinery. When I was buying the second-hand piece of a color-corrector, I did not…actually I bought a broken piece of machine and that cost us quite, pay a heavy price. And we had to…the maintenance for that machine cost us a lot. And luckily, we were able to survive out of the crisis. But yes. I did make these mistakes and I failed a lot of clients, I failed a lot of staff to trust me or not, whether or not to trust me anymore. Of course, I was cheated also, but you can never really blame anybody but yourself as a leader. Yes, I did fail in buying a wrong piece of equipment. Yes, I did.

Boy: Yeah, the lady in red.

S 7: Hi, Nichol. Actually I’m from Shanghai and I…I’m wondering where is your office. No, no… actually I was wondering, is there any difference between starting a new business in Hong Kong and especially like in mainland China? Thank you.

NIC: I don’t think we should draw a line between any countries especially that we’re as one now. If you hold on to the same principles, may it be in Hong Kong or mainland China, or the States, or Africa. I think it should be the same. And my office is in the 红方工业区, so…

S 7: Is it very luxurious?

NIC: It’s ok. We might expand in the summer.

S 8: Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? Hi, Nicholas! Do you have any short term or long term plan on your company or on your personal life? I remember that you are like action movies, are you still going for that? Do you have any plan in the future to have your own film shot?

Boy: Sorry, this is irrelevant to entrepreneurship, so…

NIC: That’s all right. Is it ok? Actually, you know it’s kind of relates, and though it’s kind of a…it’s not a business secret, but… A lot of people think why did you all a sudden open a post-production company when you’re an actor. Does it sound that ridiculous? Am I jumping from acting to cooking? I am not. Actually if you think about it deeply, it’s quite linked together. If you have enough bargaining power and trust between the directors and the producers to say,” Look, my company can handle this now. What about I participate in your next movie, and I do the post?” Now, isn’t that a win-win situation? So, do I have plans? Yes, I do have plans in making new movies and I hope that I can bargain the deal that I can also handle the post-production part. If…we have all seen that you know the last real big success in Hong Kong----《桃姐》. We were really lucky to be able to do the color correction part, although I wasn’t in it. But, hey, we got to the Venice Awards.

Boy: Yeah, the lady in the back.

S 9: So you were 30…I’m sorry, you were 23 when you founded your company. (Boy: 22) You were so young; did you ever feel like you missed out on life? And how do you deal with these regrets?

NIC: I tried to think that I lived my life fully. That’s why I’m going for every…call me greedy. But I’m going for every opportunity yet. Why shouldn’t you? Right? A lot of people ask me that question do I regret anything. Like I said, I would take I would fully commit to my education if I have the chance to buy back 15-year’s life. But, I don’t. I think I have lived my life fully. I have two very cute sons and they’re healthy. I have…I’m just grateful. And I have everyone should think out of the box sometimes. You know, I’m getting lots of questions whereas “how to pursue a dream?” or “is this ok?” ”Are we going too far?” ”Where do you draw a line between reality and vision?” Leonardo Da Vinci in 1493, I think it was 1493, that’s a “Judy air crew”----What we know today as a helicopter. I’m pretty sure, back into the time then people call him crazy. “What? That thing flies? Well, whatever…” Well, 500 years after, we are…I mean it’s a very well-known transportation device. It’s 1493. So don’t doubt yourself. You may get a lot of negative inputs or comments. My mom, my families told me, they were seriously, in words,” You won’t make it; you won’t be a successful businessman.” I got tons of those. My dad, you know, all worried because…it’s just seldom for one leaving entertainment business actually make it from the scratch in the business world. But, that’s me, that’s the rebellions side of me. I like proving people wrong.

Boy: So, we’ll only have time for about two more questions. The lady in the front row there.

S 10: Hi, Nicholas, I wonder…you mention that you have a competitor in Shanghai, right? So how are you going to lead your team to defeat your competitor?

NIC: Yeah, competitors are everywhere. And I…I like the thought of friendly competition. Only through that will the clients know who is better, and that makes us to excel, to thrive more for excellence. You know, if anything was monopolized by only one grand name, they won’t fight. There is no one to be in the race, you can walk that marathon and still win if you are the only walking or running, right? We just do our jobs as we should every day, regardless if there is a competitor, if there is Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks coming into Shanghai or not, I’m just doing my job, as should my staff.

Boy: Well, our last question will go to the guy in the black shirt.

S 11: Hi, Nicholas, my name is Ken. As you mentioned the skill of post-production in Hong Kong is not that far from the western industry. The only difference is in terms of culture. So I want to ask you have any plans to bring the Post Production Office to the international market by overcoming this barrier.

NIC: Wow! Right now, I have to say I don’t have that ability yet. Because I have my efforts and investments into…first handling our whole China. But, I do believe that…you know…what’s that movie called? 《金陵十三钗》, right? Christian Bill came to us, you know, he China-based movie. So, you know, if you ask me about that, that’s something really far. But I hope one day or maybe through IPO, will I get the chance to go overseas and reach that goal. But me alone, I really can only do that much.

Boy: Our last question will go to President Tony Chan. Will you do the honors?

Tony: Nic is a surprise. Now can I ask a question not tied to entrepreneurship? Everybody wants to ask that kind of question!

Boy: Sorry, sorry! I won’t entertain this, but I don’t know if he is feeling generous?

NIC: Please.

Tony: You know some of us who sitting here are a little bit older than most of the people here, and some of us grew up with movies related to your family. So, no, but I wasn’t gonna ask about that, I was gonna ask there must be a lot of family pressure, you know, just maybe implicit, to live up to the family fame. You know, maybe founding a new company, finding your own place, making your own name. I just wonder how…you views on this, how you live through this. Must be a lot of expectation that a lot of our students also feel, before you say you have to find your own passion, a lot of our students also feel the pressure from our family, a lot of family expectation. So, for you, with the particular family you have with the fame, you must feel that ten times more than the typical students. I want to hear what your view on this is.

NIC: Uh, it’s a good question, really. I used to hate that shadow that overpowered Nicholas Tse, because I am the son of whom and whom. But I have learned maybe because I started working at the age of 15 or 16. And now, did my parents do anything wrong? I have learned to accept and actually be proud of who they are. I used to really hate that shadow…谢贤的儿子… Seriously! But, as you grow, and you go through crisis and all that crap, you learn, when you get hit, and life will hit you as hard as he wants to, no one will stand by you as close as your family. And it is through these little problem and crisis, where I have found a way to relieve that shadow as being whoever’s son, and embrace it and love it and say,” Yes, I am, so what?” We are both doing ok as a human being. And in this business and the entertainment business, I am proud now to hold my father or my mother’s hand and say,” We’re done our part in this business.” So, really, I know, cause I have kids also. And sometimes when I think about it, I ask myself: wow, I’m under a lot of pressure. I was under the eye of 6 million people in Hong Kong watching me grow up as the son of Patrick Tse. Now that I think about it, what’s really unfair for my kids, because now they’re under the…you know…the lens of 1.3 billion people in China, and my kids are under more pressure than I am. But what I hope they will learn from this is, if they can just simply grow as a human being and not let my shadow overpower them too much. Now, that’s being a man, now that’s being able to live life as you should. Why let anything stand in your way, especially if they’re someone who loves you and that’s unconditional love. They expect nothing in return, I bet anything, because…just simply because you are sitting here today; they want the best for you. This is HKUST, man!

Boy: Well, that officially ends the Q&A Session. Karen, back to you.

MC: Ok, let’s give then a round of applause. I have to say, Nicholas, this is the second time I meet you. The first time we did a video interview with him, and that will be showing in the fourth-coming class. And there was truly inspirational, even though I heard it twice. So, thank you very much. To show our appreciation, may I invite Dean to the stage for a gift-giving ceremony? Please remain on stage. May I now invite President Tony Chan and Professor Roger King, and also the three interviewers, please join Nicholas for a photo. I can see there are lots of photos.

R: I think Karen, Renee and George should come here.

MC: Ok. Thank you very much. Most of all, thank you all for coming to the event, give yourself a round of applause. Now, I am sure many of you are very interested in joining Post Production Limited, right? And this evening the senior managers are going to stay behind to answer questions, so you can explore job opportunities with them. Yes, we have Amanda, Diana who is the managing directors; also, Michael is going to join us with the director. So, for those who would like to talk to them, please come down later. And in the meantime, in the meantime, I am afraid this is the end of our first Asian Leadership Series. And I hope to see you again, good night! So, for those students who would like to talk, can you please come down? It’s a free format thing. Anyone wants a job?