EuroWire January 2015

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January 2015 24
Corporate communications
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s
modest command of Mandarin raises the
bar for Americans eager to do business in China
“For ambitious executives, speaking Mandarin could soon be as
important on the resume as the ubiquitous MBA.”
Reporting on an 22nd October visit to Beijing by Mark
Zuckerberg, in the course of which he answered questions in
Mandarin, Reuters columnist Katrina Hamlin noted that the
young American CEO of Facebook is far from uent in that
tongue.
Even so, she wrote, his performance “surprised and delighted his
hosts.” And pressure to follow his example is probably being felt
by other US corporate chiefs. (“Zuckerberg’s Chinese Chat Leaves
CEOs Tongue-Tied,” 24th October)
Right now, not many foreign multinationals have native Chinese
speakers at the board level, and Western business leaders lucky
or far-sighted enough to have studied Chinese at an early age
are few in number.
Roger Holterman, principal consultant with the Robert Walters
executive search rm in Shanghai, told Ms Hamlin that a scant
15 per cent of the board-level executives he encounters at
non-Chinese multinationals have a grasp of Mandarin.
It remains to be seen how much Mr Zuckerberg’s linguistic air
will help Facebook in the People’s Republic, where censorship
has long blocked access to his social networking site. But he
clearly has positioned himself among those business leaders
willing to put extra e ort into making it in China.
According to international recruitment rms, more senior
executives all the time are working on their Mandarin.
Reuters pointed out that, for companies with big operations in
China, a bilingual work force promises such bene ts as a fuller
understanding of the business environment and much stronger
support from both local sta and clients. Wrote Ms Hamlin,
“These people will graduate to the boardroom over time.”
† While Mr Zuckerberg’s wife is from a family of Chinese
speakers, the Facebook founder had to pick up his Chinese
while running a $200 billion business. The message is plain.
It may be no easy thing to squeeze language studies into a
packed work schedule. But it can be done.
Automotive
Safety-related vehicle recalls spiked
last year in the US, but here’s the surprise:
most were for bread-and-butter issues
“Clearly we are entering into a di erent environment. The GM
recalls [for faulty ignition switches] coming quickly on the heels
of the Toyota unintended acceleration issues have amped things
up. We are at this intersection of major shifts in technology.”
Sean Kane, founder of Safety and Research Strategies, an
engineering consulting rm in Rehoboth, Massachusetts, spoke
the truth about the recalls. By November of last year, automakers
in the US had recalled a record 56 million-plus vehicles – more
than three times the number of new cars and trucks Americans
would buy in all of 2014.
As to the major shifts in technology mentioned by Mr Kane,
today’s cars are indeed highly complex mechanisms. The
software to run a new model will typically have more than
a million lines of code. But Brent Snavely, auto editor of the
Detroit Free Press, has discerned a curious pattern. A surprising
number of recalls of these engineering marvels involved
relatively fundamental equipment. (“Automakers Set Recall
Record and Mostly for Basic Issues,” 20th October). Mr Snavely
cited these examples from the month which saw publication of
his article:
† On 15th October, Toyota recalled 423,000 vehicles in the US
and many more in Japan to x potential fuel leaks
† On 16th October, Chrysler recalled 470,000 vehicles for
alternators that might fail and recalled 437,000 Jeep
Wranglers because water might get into the electrically
controlled side-view mirror
† Earlier in October, GM said it would notify owners of about
89,000 Chevrolet Sparks from the previous three model years
of a recall “because corrosion can cause the secondary hood
latch striker to stick in the open position”
† While recalls for relatively small equipment failures show
no sign of abating, neither Mr Kane nor Jake Fisher, director
of auto testing for Consumer Reports, takes this as a sign of
an industry in a quality crisis. Both say that generally cars
are far safer and more reliable today than ever before, an
assessment in which Renee Stephens, vice president of
US automotive at J D Power and Associates, the customer
satisfaction researcher, concurs.
Transatlantic Cable
Image: www.bigstockphoto.com Photographer Zsolt Ercsel