
Yale SOM Chinese Alumni Alliance Fireside Chat with Sally Shan ’97 and Deputy Dean Joel Getz
Sally Shan joined Deputy Dean Joel Getz at the Yale SOM Chinese Alumni Alliance inaugural gathering in New York and shared remarks on the trends that will shape 2025, and her perspective on SOM, leadership, growth and progress.
The Yale SOM Chinese Alumni Alliance convened its inaugural in-person gathering in New York in late 2024. The event featured opening remarks from Sally Shan ’97 on the trends that will shape 2025 and a fireside chat with SOM’s Joel Getz on leadership, growth, and progress. The YSCAA is led by Justin Cao’12, Daisy Du ’12, Joy Han ’22, and Vera Wang ’22.
Sally Shan is the Co-Founder and Chairman of AspenBridge Advisory. With over 30 years of experience in the global financial sector, Ms. Shan has held a range of executive leadership roles during her distinguished career in investment banking and private equity. From 2012 to 2024, she served as Head of HarbourVest Partners' China operations, where she was instrumental in establishing the firm's private equity investment and fundraising platform. Prior to this, Ms. Shan was a Managing Director at J.P. Morgan, where she led the Asia Technology Investment Banking Division following a decade at Lehman Brothers.
Ms. Shan is a board member of VillageCore, an advisor to the Yale Beijing Alumni Association and served as a member of the Greater China Advisory Board of the Yale School of Management from 2019 to 2024. Ms. Shan is a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network in China, co-founder of the SHero Young Women's Leadership Program and an internationally certified leadership coach. She has also served as a committee member of the Fund-of-Funds Subcommittee of the Asset Management Association of China, and as an advisor to the LP Advisory Committees of several prominent private equity firms across Asia. Ms. Shan holds a Bachelor's degree in Economics from Renmin University of China and an MBA from Yale University.
Opening Remarks: Sally Shan on Three Trends that will Shape 2025
It is a big endeavor for SOM to start a program like this, in the current environment, and it says a lot about SOM’s commitment to the global Chinese community. I consider this a differentiator across business schools and one of the key things that differentiated my experience beginning the moment I came to SOM. My career and my life were deeply connected with SOM and the SOM Chinese community. It is a very unique time in the U.S., globally, and for humanity. There are three major, very important trends that make me think a lot about how to live our lives.
The first, which is very relevant in the current geo-political climate, is the shift in globalization’s impact on everything, including the individual.
My generation benefited significantly from globalization and that may change fundamentally in the next decade in China and the U.S. My cohort benefited from globalization in terms of growth and opportunity and our ability to pursue careers and advancement across continents and sectors. We might study in both Asia and the U.S. and then pursue careers in both countries with the ability to go back and forth between regions and divisions without changing firms. I see a major structural change that will impact that over the next 10 years.
The second trend is, of course, AI.
I am paying close attention to how we work with AI and how AI is going to disrupt our careers and our lives. In reality, we don’t know, and no one knows. So, we are essentially on a level playing field with kids from college in terms of how AI will change our careers and lives. My daughters are graduating soon, and we are at the same starting point when it comes to leveraging AI and reacting to its impacts. We all have to think about skilling up and reskilling for the next 60–80 years.
The third trend is longevity.
I like to frame that in the positive - longevity versus the negative - the aging population. Globally, like it or not, we are all going to live one hundred-plus years and the issue is, will we live healthily or not? That is something I put a lot of time into, and I have a model which I might develop into an app to enable us to all do this personally. I have designed my next 65 years, and this is part of my Life Design, my network, my career, and many other things.
It is time we rethink and change our assumptions and restructure our minds to focus on continued growth and learning; otherwise, we will be disrupted. That’s what I tell my daughters, and we are at the same starting point in a new and uncertain world.
That makes it even more important for this community to connect, collaborate, and co-create value in the future. There is no other Chinese community at any other business school that is as strong as SOM’s, I can assure you, based on my experience. I really gained from this community and it’s even more important for the Chinese community in the U.S. to get more connected.
During the pandemic, I was traveling back and forth. I did six trips and five quarantines, which was 87 days. I gained some really important skills during that time. I found I would spend a third of my time in New York and two thirds of my time in China. That is also part of my life design—the place is key. I need to design my life with the time and space to go to places that nourish me and the networks and people that nourish me.
The SOM Chinese alumni community is a group of people I gain energy from and that’s why I'm here. I am honored to be here and have this new connection where we can grow together to 120.
Fireside Chat: Deputy Dean Joel Getz & Sally Shan
Joel: The SOM you went to and graduated from in 1997 is very different from SOM today, and the student community from China has changed fundamentally. Talk to us about the challenge of starting a career in the U.S. at that time, and the key to your success, as, essentially, you were forging new territory.
Sally: Yes, China in the 1990s was so different than China now and when I started at Yale SOM in 1995 it was my first time in the U.S. I was curious about everything, and I think people were also curious about me.
At the time, the class had two students from China, but I was the only one who came directly from mainland China and that was unusual. The community was very curious about both me and China, which was good. It made me feel recognized and special and that was a unique advantage. Back then I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay in the U.S., as I always want to be in places where I feel I can do well, and I wasn’t sure this was my place. I figured I would give it a year.
My focus was on pursuing jobs through on campus recruiting and I was lucky to get all the interviews I wanted. Following my first three interviews, I got offers from Lehman, Salomon, and BCG and I cancelled the others to leave opportunities for fellow students.
During my summer internship at Lehman Brothers, Sass Darwish was a senior associate and very involved in recruiting me and supporting me during my summer internship. Back then, SOM was such a small program we had very few students in IB, so we worked hard to help each other. During that summer, Lehman brought in a very senior SOM alumni, Ron Lubash who was running the tech practice in Israel at that time. All of these SOM alumni helped me get my full time offer.
I borrowed from my mom to pay my first year SOM tuition, and following my summer internship at Lehman I was able to repay that debt and fund my second-year tuition. I still didn’t have a clear goal of exactly what I wanted to do but I got the offer, and I knew SOM alumni would take care of me at Lehman, so I stayed. My offer was for the Asia program, with my first 18 months in New York for training. When I was entering my second year, Lehman was almost going bankrupt in 1998 and didn’t need people in Asia. I was working in tech and liked it, and they liked me, so I got an offer to stay in New York, not by design but due to the market environment.
I met many more SOM alumni and stayed in New York until I moved to the West Coast for family reasons, until my husband wanted to move back to China. I mention this because while I was in a very competitive industry, I still made decisions with my family in mind. I went back to Asia in 2012 and at that time I still didn’t have high expectations about myself. I work hard wherever I am.
When I started at Lehman in 1997, there were 13 women in my class of 65. When I left Lehman in 2006 to join JP Morgan in Asia, I was the only woman at my level and there were only six women more senior than me at the firm. It was a very tough environment for women to thrive. Knowing I could go back to China gave me a backbone: I had options and a much broader perspective than many peers due to growing up in China. In the short term, I wasn’t as smooth in communications but in the longer term that broader perspective helped me do well and continue to grow in whatever job capacity I had, wherever I was.
Joel: Right now, the world has never been more fractured. What advice do you have for young people navigating the current headwinds, specifically around building diverse teams in the current environment?
Sally: I was recently in San Francisco and an alumni asked me: What was the most important skill you needed throughout your career? I thought it was communication. I am a much better communicator now than I was five years ago, and I have studied co-active coaching and learned about how to be a coach. This includes listening, learning to see things from different perspectives, and really strengthening my muscle memory of understanding that every individual is different and there is a reason we think differently. That has helped me make sense of the world and understand why people, organizations, and countries make certain decisions at certain points in time.
A key part of communication is truly understanding who we are and who the other party is and understanding each of us are different individuals. At this time, we need to understand ourselves and understand fundamentally why people have different views; it will help us make sense of the world. Based on that new cognitive capability and framework, we can communicate more effectively in this uncertain world. Essentially, we can learn how to say the same thing in a way that everyone can connect to.
The most important skill is to improve our ability to think from different perspectives and communicate in a way that respects differences; to do this we need to understand why people see things differently and even do certain things to us that we find challenging. This is especially true in U.S. corporations, and this is the number one skill needed to strengthen, gain, or regain in this dynamic environment.
Joel: Let’s talk about success and failure. I would say the optimal number of mistakes one can make in their life and career is not zero. Do you believe if you live your life to not make mistakes you are leaving a lot of success and happiness on the table? How do you move at a pace and in a way that allows mistakes to happen and moves you forward?
Sally: First of all, I don’t regret. I have a positive psychology inside me and one of the keys is when I have control over something I can get the best outcome, and if I do not have control over something, I don’t bother. Oftentimes we feel bad about ourselves or blame ourselves for things we can’t control, and that takes energy.
Another thing is, I don’t get angry. I read when I was 14 that anger is using somebody else’s mistake to punish yourself and that has stayed with me. Guilt and regret are negative energy.
I define failure in a positive sense and define the term “fail” as the First Attempt In Learning. I instilled this belief in my daughters, especially when they were seven or eight and playing tennis in a highly competitive environment. I want them to see failure as a first attempt at learning. In sports, when you fail because your opponent is better, you learn something from it. This should be your driver to keep going in sports, careers, and life.
If things don’t work out as well as they might, I analyze what I can control and focus on succeeding there. I can’t control the U.S.-China relationship or the outcome of an election, but I can make the best out of it. I used to think being lucky was important but then I found that you get lucky over time. Whatever card I’m given, I play the best hand I can. You can learn if there was something you could have done better and act rather than blaming yourself for failure. Whatever happens, we are all only living in the moment.
To survive the 110-hour work week at Lehman with tough and difficult bosses you have to be positive. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here, and I wouldn’t live to be 120. You also have to really know when to say no. Having perseverance is great but if you are against the whole trend, it’s not going to work.
Some people might think that I have accomplished a lot in my career, but actually I think I am still early in the journey of growth. Success is a result of your talent, capability, and work ethic, and it is also a result of the environment and the time you are in. I have heard a lot of young people state that their goal is to be the next Zhang Lei or Neil Shen. I would say, even if you have the talent and work ethic, if that is your only goal you might be unhappy forever as we may never experience the same growth trend again. Today is a very different time and environment and young people need to have a broader view of the world and an authentic view of who they are to chart their success.
So, I am focused on always growing and trying new things. I am designing my life with a portfolio theory and the core is to have a life purpose. It’s important to always have purpose in life, and it doesn’t have to be a big goal. We need to know: what do I really want, and who do I want to become? And to do that you need a core purpose and values.
I value growth and freedom. Growth is one of my key values; if I don’t feel like I'm growing it’s unsettling. I value freedom and need freedom in my arrangements at every stage.
There are six building blocks to my Life Design, and you can think of it as six pieces of a pie. Each building block is important, and the key is to know how to allocate your time, energy, and mindshare in a way that results in optimal happiness and fulfillment.
I believe you need all six.
- The first one is family and the second is career, of course.
- The third block is your social network, and this community, the YSCAA is one of mine. It’s important to add and reduce your network based on who is growing with you and who is not and evolve your networks over time.
- The fourth is health and this includes your mental and physical health, how you eat, supplement and rest.
- The fifth is wealth, and this is important because it helps you achieve your goals and purpose. For example, if you are going to live to be 120, you need money to live that long.
- The sixth building block is personal development. This is what you give yourself, your hobbies and how you spend your “me time.”
These are the six building blocks of our total life, and key to my design is time and space. If I am stuck, I do a scan and if I’m comfortable—I have the right balance—I move on. I find it helps me solve small problems when I have a big framework. It’s an experiment I’m the proud designer of and everyone can have their own pie. If you feel comfortable with your arrangement, you will be happy with yourself, as we can never be someone else.
Joel: You are an example of someone with a big mind and a big heart and we are grateful to have you here tonight and as part of this community which will continue to grow. Talk to us about mentorship. Who helped you and what is your inspiration for all that you give to others?
Sally: I did not have a formal mentor and as a result I reach out to everyone. A formal mentor has a certain definition. After I learned co-active coaching, I say, “I am your coach, not your mentor; I see you and I can help you see yourself.” Of course, many SOM alumni were mentors to me, but I see so many people and when I meet someone with something I admire, or they do something better than me, I reach out. Generally, people want to help if you connect in a way that shows you respect and value them and want to learn from them.