03 / 05 — Business Practice

Business Practice

Every venture here started with the same question: can this idea survive contact with a market? A footwear venture built around women-centred branding, a business club I competed in and then coached, a summer school on leadership, and a batik collective where the people who make the goods own half of what they make.

04Ventures 90%Footwear progress 01Best-CEO nomination 01Co-owned brand

Footwear Startup

Women-centred branding
Sustainable flip-flop social venture

This sustainable flip-flop social venture is co-led. A teammate oversees research into eco-friendly materials, while I anchor the project in humanistic values.

I observed how consumer advertising often imposes restrictive roles upon women. Traditional ads cast women either as homemakers, or as pre-homemakers — figures expected to dedicate time to grooming and maintaining a polished appearance. Our product responds to these narrow stereotypes: when wearing these flip-flops, women can simply be themselves.

Project progress90%

I plan to carry this footwear social venture forward into my university years.

Sustainable materials Women-centred branding Social venture Co-led team

A vintage magazine advertisement depicting women in fixed domestic roles — The roles advertising writes for us

A vintage magazine advertisement showing a woman before six in the evening — And the deadline it sets

A 1930s British advertisement for Bath Eucryl: a woman in a white dress beside a bath, under the headline For Health and Beauty — “For health & beauty” — Bath Eucryl, 1930s

A 1930s British advertisement for Richmond Cookers showing a woman standing beside a gas cooker in a kitchen — “Cool and clean” — Richmond Cookers, 1930s

A British advertisement poster from about 1935 showing a woman standing at a kitchen stove — At the stove — London, c. 1935

A 1930s British advertisement for Richmond's Gas Fires showing a woman tending a fire in a living room — “Richmond’s gas fires” — 1930s

The first two are from my own portfolio file; the other four are from the V&A collection of British advertising.

Business Exchange & Competition Club

Senior competitor → student coach
Mentoring new participants

I competed as a senior competitor and received a nomination for Best CEO. Afterwards, I became a student coach in my business club to mentor new participants preparing for the business pioneer case challenge.

I also organise group discussions, where members gather to exchange ideas and debate business strategies.

Senior competitor Best-CEO nomination Student coach Peer mentoring

Standing in front of the BPC Speed Investment board as student coach — Student coach

Members in uniform gathered around a table for a group discussion — Group discussion

The club members together in the classroom — The club

The BPC Speed Investment competition board with the team's entry — The competition board

Leadership in Business World

Summer school
Live group case competition

A summer school put me in a room with a case I had never seen before. We read the materials ourselves, built the analysis from scratch, and then had to defend it in front of a panel — not write it up.

It was the first time I had to defend a business decision out loud rather than on paper, and the first time a team of strangers had to agree on what the numbers meant before anyone else asked them to.

Group case Materials analysis Live defence Teamwork

The team presenting a materials analysis to the room — Presenting the analysis

The team standing in front of the case screens — The team

Co-Owned Artisan Collective

Changping School for Rural Women
An equal partnership, not charity

I partnered with the Beijing Changping School for Rural Women to build a co-owned batik brand. The school offers free craft classes to rural women, but in the past the students had no way to turn their skill into income, and the school itself relied entirely on donations.

Together we developed market-ready batik cultural products: the students make them in the school workshop, and I lead the student team on design, promotion and sales. After material costs, the net profit is shared — the larger share flows back to the artisans and to running the workshop, the smaller share stays with our team to keep developing new products. Every product carries a card with the artisan's story.

This is the school's first continuous, self-generated income that does not depend on donations, and it is produced by the students' own hands. It turns charitable support into an equal market partnership.

Co-ownership Market development Profit sharing Artisan storytelling

The artisan and the student team member side by side — With Professor Wu Qing

Changping School for Rural Women

Provides skills training and workshop space

Co-create market-ready batik products

Artisans contribute craftsmanship · Student team contributes design and market development

Production · Storytelling · Sales

Products are made in the school workshop, promoted and sold by the student team, with an artisan story card accompanying each item.

Net profit after material costs

Shared between the artisans/workshop and student team according to the agreed arrangement.

Major share

Returns to artisans and workshop operations.

Smaller share

Supports the student team's continued product development.

Next — 04 / 05

Community Impact