溯宁 田
Tian was born in Lanzhou, the capital city of Gansu Province in Northwestern China, where both of his parents worked as leading ecology researchers. When the Cultural Revolution started, his parents, as persecuted intellectuals, sent three-year-old Tian across the country to Shenyang, the capital city of the Northeastern province of Liaoning, to be raised by his grandparents.
Despite the following ten-year turmoil and the disruption of the Chinese school system, Tian received a solid educational foundation from his erudite family and relatives. After Chinese education returned to normalcy, Tian attended high school and was admitted to Liaoning University. Following in his parents’ footsteps, he earned his bachelors in environmental biology in 1985. Like many outstanding Chinese students of his time, Tian went to the US for his graduate studies, and in 1992 received his PhD in natural resources management from Texas Tech University.
While working as a Chinese government-contracted environmental biologist in Washington DC in the early 1990s, Tian discovered the power of the budding world wide web. He became increasingly intrigued by the capacity it had to bring a wealth of information across physical boundaries and thus predicted its economic implications. AsiaInfo was born in 1993, funded by venture capital and co-founded by Tian in Dallas, TX. From a humble start with only four employees, AsiaInfo began operations, providing much needed information about China to American businesses venturing into the Chinese market. Before long, it grew into a software and system solutions firm for the emerging Chinese telecom industry. By the time of its IPO on the NASDAQ in 1999, AsiaInfo had moved its headquarters to mainland China, employed nearly 400 engineers, and was involved in an array of large projects.
That same year, China Netcom Group, founded by a group of Chinese government agencies to develop a broadband internet structure, was in search of its first president, whose top priority was to break into a market monopolized by China Telecom. Much to everyone’s surprise, the environmental biologist Tian was offered the position. To complement his own background, Tian aggressively recruited technical talents both from China and overseas. In the following years, the Chinese telecom industry went through a massive reorganization that ended China Telecom’s monopoly. Tian led China Netcom through a series of acquisitions. He envisaged a niche market for multinationals in China who would have higher demands for customer services, and Tian’s US education and entrepreneurial experience proved to be essential to build that service-oriented niche market. By 2002, China Netcom had formed a group from the previous ten telecom providers in the Northern Chinese provinces. Tian then relentlessly pursued the expansion of the market to Southern Chinese cities, such as Shanghai and Guangdong. In November 2004, China Netcom went public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and Tian was named the CEO and director of the board of the newly formed public corporation.
On 17 May 2006, Tian stepped down from his high-profile CEO position to devote more time to his new venture, China Broadband Capital Partners (CBC), a private equity fund that invests primarily in companies in the telecommunications, internet, media, and technology sectors. In July 2007, he resigned the position of non-executive director that he had held since 2006 and left the telecom industry. Tian’s seven-year reign over one of the nation’s largest telecom corporations made him indisputably one of the most power- ful figures in the industry. In addition to China Netcom, Tian sat on the boards of numerous other heavyweight IT companies. During his tenure as the CEO and director at China Netcom, Tian also served as vice chairman and a non-executive director of PCCW Limited, the largest telecommunication enterprise in Hong Kong. Shortly after leaving China Netcom, he was appointed by Lenovo as independent non-executive director.
After leaving China Netcom, Tian successfully transitioned from the chief executive of a state-owned enterprise to a private equity investor. His multidimensional experience as an entrepreneur and executive in the information technology business not only provided him with key contacts and a wide network, it also gave him a unique angle to discover a company’s value. In April 2007, MySpace China launched in the world’s most populous country. The joint investors behind the deal were Tian’s CBC, Murdoch’s News Corp., and US venture capital firm IDG (International Data Group).
Tian has high ambitions for his private equity fund. In a recent interview with the South China Morning Post, he acknowledged that he dreamed of seeing China Broadband Capital Fund in ten years as a recognized contributor in building China’s digital ecosystem, and a domestic/foreign dual fund in both US currency and Chinese RMB. He also revealed that his private equity organization was on a mission to fund China’s next revolutionized technology a ‘Chinese Edison or Wright Brothers.’ Since his departure, Tian may still be best known and introduced as the ‘former CEO of China Netcom.’ However, there is little doubt that Tian’s rising achievement in capitalization will soon earn him another distinguished title as one of China’s top financiers.
