Jia Wang Speaks to Barcelona Global Campus Students About Entrepreneurship and Creativity

Students in Carlos Rivadulla’s course ‘Theory and Practice of Management’ recently attended a talk by Jia Wang on being an entrepreneur. The daughter of Chinese immigrants, Jia spoke of how growing up poor and working from an early age alongside her parents formed her work ethic. After her studies in Economics and Business Administration at the UPF in Barcelona, she won a full study abroad scholarship to study International Economics at Harvard. Upon her return from the U.S. she decided to turn down a job at an international auditing firm in order to start her own business, despite strong opposition from her parents.

As the recipient of the prestigious ‘UPF Emprèn’ grant, at the young age of 22 Jia received seed money to found the publishing house Jia Jia Ediciones, specialized in the production of books and music for teaching Chinese to Spanish children. Jia spoke of other initiatives, such as her work at the ESADE China Europe Club building commercial ties with Chinese businesses and the creation of the first ever Chinese summer immersion camp in Spain.

Jia Wang, whose impressive accomplishments have been featured in the pages of La Vanguardia (click here to read her interview in Spanish) and the New York Times (click here to read her interview in English), emphasized the creativity required to start a business, while also pointing out the very real challenges of surviving in the publishing industry.

We would like to thank Jia for sharing her experiences and insights with CEA students and Carlos Rivadulla for making this meeting possible.

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