Jerry (Jinyu) Yang, EMBA ’12, incorporated his company TechBridge Inc. in 2007, but “the only background I had was engineering,” he says. “I ran into a lot of issues ranging from business strategy to accounting to leadership skills.”
He knew he needed training. His business — which offers data conferencing services to small- and medium-sized companies — is incorporated in California, but Yang works primarily in Hangzhou, a city about an hour outside of Shanghai.
“I never thought I could get a world-class business education in China while continuing my tech startup,” he says. Then Yang found the Washington University–Fudan University joint EMBA program.
“The program helped me establish a business-thinking framework, which is very critical to me and the company,” Yang says. Since graduation, he has raised funds from venture capitalists and grown his business from 20 employees to 100.
Now, Yang is giving back to the university by working to set up a platform for online giving in China. He and six other alumni are checking the feasibility of building the platform into WeChat, China’s most popular social network.
“Many alumni consider the WashU–Fudan University EMBA one of the most important experiences in their lives — me included,” Yang says. “The education we got has made us more successful, and we want to do something for the university.”
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