——By Adeline Goh Yun Ni, Tsinghua-MIT Global MBA Class of 2018

This article is part of a series covering Tsinghua Student Dialogues with Advisory Board Members. These dialogues took place on October 20, 2016, in association with the larger Tsinghua SEM 2016 Advisory Board Meeting.

We were honored to welcome Mr. Andrónico Luksic, Chairman of the Luksic Group and Quiñenco S.A. Mr. Luksic brought decades of industry and life experience and was gracious enough to share them with students during a fruitful two-hour dialogue session.

As the head of one of the largest conglomerates in Chile, Mr. Luksic first offered his view on China’s economy based on his business experience here. He expressed great confidence in China, suggesting that it will continue to grow not just in terms of global economy and politics but also in the digital arena. From his perspective, tapping into China’s pre-existing technology and infrastructure will allow Chinese enterprises to find significant opportunities in the South American market. Under his and the Luksic Group’s generous support, the Tsinghua Center for China-Latin Management Studies was established in 2010, following the 2007 introduction of the China/Chile Culture & Management Immersion Experience program. Mr. Luksic hopes to continue to bridge the differences between China’s and Latin America’s businesses to promote more business opportunities and mutual investment interests.

Mr. Luksic touched on the issue of succession in the Luksic Group, crediting his father for the groundwork he had laid before passing the baton to Mr. Luksic and his brothers. His father created a unique incentive mechanism of having a foundation manage profits from the company. These profits were allocated to family members as compensation for their work in the company. He also noted that by listing the company on a public stock exchange, the company’s annual performance was open to public scrutiny, which helps the company recognize areas for improvement that might not otherwise be identified.

On a personal note, Mr. Luksic shared about his mountain-climbing experience. A quick internet search will reveal that Mr. Luksic is known for scaling all Seven Summits without prior mountaineering experience, but little is written about his motivation to do so and the struggles he went through. He shared, humorously, that he ventured into mountaineering in a bid to woo his current wife, and it ultimately proved successful. Although he considered giving up, after evaluating the amount of effort he had invested in mountaineering, he decided to persevere. The hardest moment for him was after summiting Mount Everest, where he was overcome with joy and cried so hard that he ran out of oxygen. According to Mr. Luksic, “If you are convinced that you can do it, you can make it”; through the support of his friends and his willpower, he managed to return safely from Everest.

Last but not least, Mr. Luksic concluded the session with some advice on students’ university life and future development, arguing that higher education is invaluable precisely because it teaches us to think and analyze alternatives. He encouraged students to read the news on a daily basis to catch fresh ideas, use them to build a better career, and be a “citizen of China and also of the world.”