The story of challenging herself is often staged on Yan Huiping.
Text: "Chinese Entrepreneur" reporter Zhang Wenjing
Edited by Mina
Header photo by Deng Pan
"There is only one life, wild and precious. Tell me, how do you plan to spend your life? ”
When 60-year-old Diana Ned read this passage in her mother's book, she decided to continue her failed 28-year-old journey from Cuba to Florida, a 110-mile journey.
Her old friend and coach, Bonnie Stoll, thinks she's crazy, how is that possible? However, after one failure after another and a perilous encounter, she completed this epic grand tour.
One morning in mid-March, Yan Huiping, CFO of ZTO Express, was about to fly to Hong Kong, and while waiting for the plane to take off, she shared this story from the movie "Ned" with "Chinese Entrepreneur". "A limited life can have infinite possibilities. By stepping out of the ego at the level of consciousness, we are able to touch the infinity of the ego. "That's what touched Ned the most about her.
It is not surprising that Yan Huiping will be touched by this story. In a way, she is a "Ned" herself.
Yan Huiping, born in 1966, studied at Shanghai Wai Chinese University, and then went to the United States to study and work alone. After returning to China in 2009, she successively served as CFO in Homeinns and Cainiao, and joined ZTO Express Group as CFO in January 2018.
Those who are familiar with Yan Huiping know that the story of challenging herself is often staged on Yan Huiping. For example, in 2020, Yan Huiping led the team to successfully complete the secondary listing of ZTO Express Hong Kong within 3 months.
Despite her experience in the capital market, this is her first time managing a company to go public, but she did not hand over the leadership of the listing work to professional teams such as investment banks and brokers, but led the team to "lead the singer" herself. She and the team studied and explored together, communicated and coordinated with the professional team, grasped the rhythm, and wrote the core documents, down to the word by word.
Later, recalling the listing, she said frankly, "It was difficult and tiring, but it was hard enough, and the team and I gained professional technology, mental and perseverance from it." ”
Yan Huiping once said to "Chinese Entrepreneur", "I will always dig into myself, and I will always be looking for my own ceiling all my life." She enjoys the extreme process of "doing what she wants to do under the inner drive, even if she is exhausted", believing that it is the pursuit of infinite possibilities in life.
"Get the books done"
When she joined Zhongtong, Yan Huiping went through two interviews, and the second time was when she took the initiative to apply. At the first meeting, Lai Meisong, chairman and president of Zhongtong Express, talked a lot about Zhongtong, including how Zhongtong got to where it is today and where it will go in the future. In order to understand what kind of person her future boss is, Yan Huiping made an appointment to meet Lai Meisong for the second time.
Yan Huiping found that Lai Meisong did not talk much about the concept of "lofty" or empty words. "He began to be a boss at the age of 16, he was already a successful businessman before doing express delivery, leading Zhongtong to come up and become the leader of China's express delivery industry, his wisdom is obtained from hard work, he can always from the perspective of underlying logic or reverse thinking, many seemingly complex things, human nature analysis to the root." Yan Huiping said.
For example, since 2010, Lai Meisong has designed and implemented the "shareholding reform", which will master the provincial core distribution resources of the franchisees, from the "princes" to the group shareholders who work together, during which Lai Meisong took the lead in giving up 20% of the management shares he held, and the price of the replacement with the franchisee company is transparent and superior to the market price.
Yan Huiping learned that the joint-stock reform of Zhongtong is unprecedented in the industry, which solves a fundamental problem in the development of Zhongtong at that time, and makes the distribution of individual and collective interests, immediate and long-term interests, local interests and overall interests the best.
"I am very fortunate to have met a company leader with a practical background and the wisdom of simplicity." Yan Huiping said, "Lai Meisong is a very important reason for me to join Zhongtong. ”
When asked about her expectations for finance, Ms. Lai said, "Finance is all about getting the accounts right." ”
Source: Visual China
Zhongtong is the latest and fastest growing express delivery company in China's private express delivery. Since 2016, ZTO's market share has ranked first in the industry, and in the same year, ZTO was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in the United States.
"The company's troika of service quality, market share and profit goes hand in hand, which is rare in any industry." Yan Huiping told "Chinese Entrepreneur".
"Squeeze out the last drop of lemon juice"
Yan Huiping still has a deep impression of an exam more than 40 years ago. When she got home from the math exam, her mother, who was a math teacher, asked her what she had taken and asked her to explain all the questions and answers. After listening, my mother took out a question and asked her, "Why did you do this?" Yan Huiping was surprised, right? Mom was stern, "The answer is correct, but I've taught you a simpler way, so why not?" ”
This incident left a deep imprint on her character - "It's not good, it's better". Yan Huiping's pursuit of perfection may have originated from that time.
Yan Huiping is used to doing things to the extreme, deep and delicate to every inch of texture. After entering Zhongtong, Yan Huiping will focus on financial operations, and take care of Zhongtong, a fast-moving ship, from the perspectives of strategic investment, capital operation, compliance and risk control, and integration of industry and finance.
In June 2018, shortly after Yan Huiping entered Zhongtong, she paid attention to a problem in data details. At that time, she pulled up a business data from different systems, which should be the same, but there were differences. As a result, Yan Huiping found that the data quality of Zhongtong did not keep up with the rapid development of the business.
Prior to this, the rapid development of enterprises, the lack of accuracy, timeliness and completeness of data has not attracted too much attention, and people from all over the company are accustomed to dealing with data.
When Yan Huiping proposed that in order to make data valuable, data governance must be carried out first, the first reaction of many colleagues within Zhongtong was: "Isn't our data very good?" ”
In the early days, the express delivery industry was accompanied by the rapid development of e-commerce, and the water was big and the fish were big, and the express delivery company could also make a good profit when stepping on this speeding train. Yan Huiping said frankly that at that time, the development of Zhongtong was more based on experience. However, with the intensification of competition in the express delivery industry, enterprises have begun to fight for efficiency, and must rely on data to grasp risks and opportunities, and seek both quantity and quality through refined management.
"If the data of various business systems are not interconnected, the rigor of database management is not enough, and refined management will not be implemented." A metaphor that Yan Huiping often makes is, "Only through fine management can the last drop of lemon juice be squeezed out." ”
She lobbied everywhere within Zhongtong, and through external consulting and auditing, she took the pulse and diagnosed the "chanting". At the end of 2018, ZTO began to systematically carry out data governance. In May 2019, Yan Huiping set up a science and technology finance department to promote the "Blue Crystal" project of the integration project of industry, finance and information, starting from the digitization of financial accounting, and promoting the refinement of business system data to meet the requirements of reporting, analysis and forecasting. Yan Huiping told China Entrepreneur that the project is still being iterated and its ultimate positioning is to become a decision-making engine for enterprises.
Nowadays, data plays an increasingly important role in the operation and management of ZTO. Lai Meisong has repeatedly emphasized the "five more important" of Zhongtong development, one of which is that "data is more important than experience".
On March 20, Zhongtong Express issued a performance announcement. In 2023, the business volume of ZTO Express will reach 30.202 billion pieces, and its market share will increase by 0.8 percentage points year-on-year to 22.9%; Adjusted net profit increased by 32.3% to RMB9.0 billion.