Six appointments on both sides of the foreign-brand premium

Mandate

Build a brand that integrators abroad will stake their own reputations on, and reduce the company's dependence on a domestic market caught in a price war.

Outcomes

• Overseas revenue rose from RMB 420 million (18 per cent of the total) in 2020 to RMB 1.35 billion (35 per cent) in 2025.
• Certified integrators abroad increased from 31 to 148, across 23 countries.
• Held European prices through the domestic price war: realised prices fell 4 per cent in Europe between 2023 and 2025, against 22 per cent in China.
• Published model-level field-failure rates from 2023 and announced a RMB 46 million reducer retrofit for the TS-450 palletiser with them.
• Moved RMB 22 million a year from trade fairs into application centres; cost per integrator-qualified opportunity fell from RMB 21,000 to RMB 9,400.

Decisions in context

I returned to Nanjing as chief marketing officer in April 2021, nine months after Tingsong listed on the STAR Market. The founder and the president gave me a plain mandate: make the overseas business large enough that a bad year at home would no longer decide the company's results. The order of work was set by events. The Turkish distributor problem came first, in 2022; the domestic price war and the field-failure report followed in 2023. I lead 186 people, half of them engineers, across Nanjing and four overseas sites, with seven direct reports covering brand, product marketing, integrator development, digital, application centres, pricing and the regional teams. I present the overseas plan and the export price policy to the board every year and channel and site proposals to its Strategy Committee. By 2025 overseas revenue was RMB 1.35 billion and the overseas gross margin 37 per cent, against 19 per cent at home.

Reason for the move

Current role. Not seeking an executive move; considering one independent directorship with the consent of Tingsong's board.

Mandate

Establish a Chinese robot brand among German-speaking integrators who had never quoted one.

Outcomes

• Built the integrator certification programme, with 24 certified European integrators by the end of 2020.
• Opened the Ludwigsburg application centre and parts store in 2019, with same-day dispatch of listed critical parts within Germany.
• Had programming manuals and safety documentation rewritten in German, Italian and Polish, with integrators as reviewers.
• European revenue grew from RMB 38 million to RMB 176 million.

Decisions in context

Tingsong set up its European subsidiary in 2017 with a sales manager, two service engineers and a rented office near Stuttgart. I moved to Ludwigsburg that September to establish marketing, reporting to the subsidiary's German managing director and functionally to our overseas vice president in Nanjing. I spent the first months visiting integrators rather than planning campaigns, and the plan I eventually wrote answered the three things they feared about a Chinese robot: parts, documentation and staying power. We designed the certification programme with six of those integrators, opened the application centre and parts store in 2019 and rewrote our manuals with integrators reviewing every chapter. My team grew from three to twelve. When Tingsong listed in July 2020, the founder asked me to return as chief marketing officer, and I handed over to my deputy in March 2021.

Reason for the move

Asked by the founder and the president to return to Nanjing as chief marketing officer after the company listed.

Mandate

Turn an engineering catalogue into product families that Chinese integrators and plant buyers could compare and choose between.

Outcomes

• Reorganised 46 robot variants into four product families sharing one controller and one programming interface.
• Launched the palletising line in 2016; it reached 19 per cent of domestic unit sales by 2017.
• Introduced downloadable application notes and welding-parameter libraries for integrators.
• Prepared the first export price list and product documentation in English and German.

Decisions in context

Tingsong's founder hired me in March 2014, when the company made 46 robot variants, sold almost entirely in China and described its products in the language of its own engineers. My first task was to make the range comprehensible. We grouped the variants into four families sharing one controller and one programming interface, which simplified training for integrators as much as it simplified our catalogue. I then led the launch of a palletising line that reached 19 per cent of domestic unit sales within a year, and introduced the application notes and welding-parameter libraries that integrators still download today. Revenue grew from RMB 410 million to RMB 960 million during these years, and a growth equity fund invested in 2015. When the first export orders arrived in 2016, I prepared our first export price list and English and German documentation, which led directly to the European posting.

Reason for the move

Moved to Germany to establish marketing for the new European subsidiary.

Mandate

Give a fast-growing drive maker a marketing function and a coherent distributor policy.

Outcomes

• Reduced distributors from 112 to 64 and required each one to employ certified application engineers.
• Held the price of the main servo range through competitors' 2012 price cuts by launching a simpler, lower-cost line alongside it.
• Built a machine-builder reference programme with 140 published application cases by 2013.
• Grew sales to packaging and textile machine builders from RMB 90 million to RMB 260 million.

Decisions in context

Xiyao made servo drives, motors and motion controllers for Chinese machine builders and sold them through more than a hundred regional distributors, many of whom simply moved boxes. I joined as its first head of marketing in July 2010, reporting to the chief executive with a team that grew to 28. We cut the distributor list to 64 and required each remaining distributor to employ application engineers we had certified, which reduced coverage in a few provinces and raised it everywhere that mattered. In 2012 two competitors cut prices sharply. Our sales team wanted to follow; I proposed a simpler, cheaper line for price-sensitive machine builders and held the price of the main range, and the chief executive agreed. That episode taught me most of what I later argued about export pricing. I completed a part-time executive MBA in 2013 and left in early 2014 to market a whole machine.

Reason for the move

Wanted to market a complete machine rather than a component, and Tingsong's founder offered the product-marketing role.

Mandate

Adapt the Swiss parent's product marketing for Chinese auto-parts and machinery buyers.

Outcomes

• Ran the Chinese launches of three generations of welding robots.
• Managed the East China integrator programme as it grew from 18 to 41 partners.
• Wrote Chinese application notes on arc welding of thin-walled automotive parts, used by integrators across the region.

Decisions in context

After four years commissioning robots, I moved into the marketing team of Ostvald's Chinese subsidiary in January 2006, responsible for welding and handling robots. The parent's materials had been written for European car plants, and Chinese auto-parts suppliers needed something different: application notes on thin-walled parts, evidence of local service and prices explained in terms of output rather than engineering. I ran three product launches and our stands at the main domestic automation fairs, and I managed the integrator programme in East China, which grew from 18 to 41 partners. Watching integrators decide which brand to quote taught me that the brand they trusted was the one that made their own jobs easier after the sale. By 2010 I wanted to apply that lesson for a Chinese manufacturer, and I left for Shenzhen.

Reason for the move

Wanted to lead marketing at a Chinese manufacturer competing with the brands I had been selling.

Mandate

Program, commission and support welding and handling robots at customers' plants.

Outcomes

• Commissioned about 120 robot cells at auto-parts and machinery plants.
• Built a weld-parameter test routine that cut commissioning time for seat-frame cells from eleven days to six.
• Trained engineers at nine integrators to program the company's robots.

Decisions in context

I joined Ostvald's Shanghai subsidiary in August 2001, a month after graduating, as an applications engineer in its East China team. The work was physical and specific: programming welding and handling robots, tuning weld parameters, commissioning cells at auto-parts and machinery plants in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai, and returning when something stopped. I commissioned about 120 cells in four years and from 2004 led small commissioning teams. The test routine I built for seat-frame cells cut commissioning from eleven days to six and became the team's standard. The defining moment came in Wuxi in 2003, when a production manager explained that he was paying a premium for service, not for the arm. I also trained engineers at nine integrators, which first showed me how much a robot maker depends on them. I moved into product marketing in January 2006.

Reason for the move

Moved into product marketing to explain to buyers what I had learnt on their shop floors.