When Jeanne de Gayffier (CEIBS MBA 2025) first set foot in Shanghai six years ago, she would never have imagined that her path would one day lead her to a position in a family-owned construction equipment company in Quanzhou, a historic city in China's eastern Fujian province.

I spent eleven years working at a major state-owned aerospace company. For a long time, I believed I could build something meaningful there. But after years of moving in circles, all I had to show for it was a managerial title—without any real promotion in rank.

I remember one hot, rainy summer evening, staring through a glass window at rows of imposing military equipment. Behind me hung a slogan: “Craftsmanship of a Great Nation.” But all I felt was a strange sense of detachment. These machines, the pinnacle of national engineering—what did they have to do with me? I was just a cog in the system. “Great craftsmanship”? I was little more than an office assistant.