Chinese Delegates Learn About American Business ‘Best Practices’ from CBRE’s Matt Ellis During San Diego Visit

China’s emergence as an industrial and economic giant can partly be attributed to the Asian superpower’s investment in the education of its emerging executives.  China’s leaders have been sending delegations of Chinese business leaders to meet with leading companies, academic institutions and business organizations in the industrialized nations so they can learn from their business partners around the world.

One such American business organization is the Global Leadership Institute (GLI), a unit of the University of California-San Diego’s School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, a graduate-level executive education program for public and private sector professionals.  Earlier this year, GLI brought a delegation of 20 business owners and executives from China’s Hubei province the United States to meet with American business executives willing to share “best practices” with their Asian counterparts. 

While in Southern California, GLI arranged a meeting in CBRE’s San Diego office, where Matt Ellis, Vice President and Director of Carbon Services, led a two-hour presentation about CBRE, its various business lines and how it conducts business.

“They were sent by the Chinese government to learn how to do business and build relationships with Americans,” Ellis explained.  “The delegates were executives from a variety of industrial and clean energy businesses, and it turned into a great opportunity to display CBRE’s depth and breadth in the Asian markets which, coincidentally, is where I was spending a lot of time pursuing business.”

GLI chose Ellis because of his deep relationship with the graduate school and UCSD, said Dana Tucker, GLI’s program coordinator.  “He has been working with students in various career services, hired interns from UCSD and spoken to students a number of times.  Plus, his experience with clean energy, LEED and sustainability was a great match.

“The visitors got a lot out of it, and they especially appreciated his involvement and enthusiasm,” she added.

“It was interesting to see how they perceived the real estate industry,” Ellis noted.  “They were particularly curious about issues such as transparency, deal making and business ethics.  We talked a lot about disclosure and ethics rules.”

In addition to his PowerPoint presentation, Elis gave the delegates a tour of the San Diego office and explained how the Company is organized geographically, financially and by practice groups.  “Some of them were interested in how CBRE could help them in their businesses.  Historically, they didn’t think in terms of the importance of real estate in their businesses, despite having these huge industrial operations, and they weren’t very familiar with brokerage.”  CBRE’s business in China is focused within primary cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Guangzhou, as well as eight other key second tier cities, but not in the more rural provinces like Hubei.  Before they left, Ellis provided them with contacts in China.

“We had a great back-and-forth dialogue,” Ellis said.  “They were a great group and they presented me with a intricate silk scarf from Hubei at the end.  Perhaps it will even turn into more than just an exchange of ideas by raising CBRE’s visibility and the value of our services to emerging Chinese markets.”