---
title: "In-Depth | The P&G Alumni Who Left, the E-commerce Players Who Advanced: The 'P&G Clan' in E-commerce"
description: "This article explores the phenomenon of P&G alumni transitioning into the e-commerce industry, examining their motivations, challenges, and the value they bring. It categorizes them into three generations and discusses the cultural and operational shifts they face, while also highlighting their strengths and the future trends of e-commerce."
author: "麦青Mandy"
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published: "2016-06-22"
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# In-Depth | The P&G Alumni Who Left, the E-commerce Players Who Advanced: The 'P&G Clan' in E-commerce

> This article explores the phenomenon of P&G alumni transitioning into the e-commerce industry, examining their motivations, challenges, and the value they bring. It categorizes them into three generations and discusses the cultural and operational shifts they face, while also highlighting their strengths and the future trends of e-commerce.

Here, I only share the most authentic workplace/management/marketing experiences, occasionally writing emotional essays. Click on the three columns 'Talk Workplace/Talk Marketing/Talk Emotions' to view serialized articles. Text by Mai Qing Mandy

In the business world of the internet era, there is a tendency to use the term 'clan' to quickly categorize a person or organization. Although simplistic and crude, it is extremely vivid—your clan determines your label, status, and the 'imagination space' that investors often mention. 'Alibaba Clan' and 'P&G Clan' clearly have different meanings in the business world; the former is often regarded as the leading clan in the internet e-commerce industry, while the latter is considered the leading clan in the traditional consumer goods industry.

Since 2008, P&G alumni have been entering the e-commerce industry in droves, blending with e-commerce companies led by the Alibaba Clan. The media naturally did not miss this most spectacular 'blending' phenomenon in the business world. Journalists and industry analysts were eager to dig into topics like 'The Glory and Pain of the P&G Clan in E-commerce.' However, these articles and analyses ultimately remained superficial—either becoming pure gossip, self-serving PR pieces for P&G alumni, or rants against P&G, failing to help readers understand the essence and trends of the business world.

I hope this article, with the most authentic and comprehensive content and a neutral and objective attitude, can share with you: What is the real 'P&G Clan'? Why do P&G talents leave? What challenges do they face after entering the e-commerce industry? What are their true inner feelings? What role and value do the P&G Clan play in e-commerce? What will the future of the P&G Clan be in the e-commerce landscape?

**1. Three Generations of 'Runaway' P&G Talents**
Talent attrition is a problem every company faces. The larger the company, the larger the base of departing talent. Today's P&G is often labeled with the 'sin of talent loss.' Why? Not because the proportion of departing talent has increased, but because the number of former employees appearing in the public eye has increased. The internet has given everyone a chance to be seen. While the older generation of P&G alumni had not yet enjoyed the 'transparency dividend' of the internet, the new generation was already eager to 'show their faces.' So it looks like a bustling 'job-hopping fever.'

Indeed, the P&G alumni active in the e-commerce industry today already have the appearance of three generations—**the older generation refers to the earliest group who helped P&G establish the Chinese market in the 1990s; the middle generation refers to those who left during the explosive growth phase of P&G's business in the early 21st century; and the new generation refers to the new wave who left during P&G's recent business setbacks.**

Although all three generations come from P&G, each has its own characteristics and cannot be uniformly labeled. The thinking and action patterns of each generation, while influenced by P&G's overall culture, are more affected by the business conditions, organizational atmosphere, and social environment of their respective eras. Even within the three generations, there can be mutual misunderstanding.

**Older Generation: Pioneers**
The older generation of P&G alumni are the founding talents who helped P&G conquer the Chinese market. In the early days of P&G's expansion, not many talents were hired, so early P&G employees were 'forced' to become generalists, developing the ability and mindset to build from scratch.

'When we first joined P&G, we didn't have that many departmental supports or agency supports; we had to do almost everything ourselves. We were in the marketing department, but we also did supply chain work, living and eating with factory workers for two weeks just to qualify a production line... These tough tasks cultivated our 'generalist' abilities, teaching us not just marketing but to think from a holistic business perspective and operate brands.' — Joanna Wang, CMO of Alimama

At the same time, the older generation received the purest American corporate culture and skills training. The first Americans sent to the Chinese market had pioneering abilities and spirit, and they used the strictest education to train local Chinese talent hands-on. Thus, the older generation's temperament and thinking are more similar to Westerners at P&G headquarters, and they have a genuine belief in marketing—they are called 'the most classic P&G people.' Their career paths are relatively similar, following the American-style professional manager route: first jumping from P&G to similar companies like Unilever and L'Oréal; then, with the internet wave, they entered the internet industry, still holding senior marketing or sales positions, and some eventually started their own businesses.

**Middle Generation: Wave Riders**
From the late 1990s to the early 21st century, P&G experienced its 'golden decade'—explosive business growth and rapid expansion of its territory. During the same period, private entrepreneurs were just starting out, and P&G didn't take them seriously.

P&G employees during the golden decade experienced unprecedented achievement and were confident in their own and the company's future. After leaving, more of them chose to start businesses directly, many opting for internet e-commerce, which was the trend of the times. Many of these wave-riding P&G alumni later achieved great success in their own ventures.

'Many people have a bad impression of TPs (e-commerce operation agents), thinking that TP prosperity was built on fake orders, promotions, and bribing platform staff. We hope to use our brand marketing model and the most standardized TP operation methods to truly build brands, rather than simply and crudely promoting them, to disrupt this mixed industry, guide the healthy development of the TP industry, and redefine it.' — Eric Shao, Founder/CEO of SoWOW

**New Generation: Gleaners**
After the golden decade, P&G began more aggressive recruitment, with each cohort larger than the last, and departments expanding rapidly. On the other hand, its business faced numerous challenges, from the demands of new-generation consumers to challenges from internet e-commerce channels. This is an awkward situation: business challenges and talent expansion are inherently contradictory, inevitably leading to talent attrition.

These new-generation P&G alumni have become gleaners in the fields cultivated by the previous generation. The e-commerce industry has already established a relatively stable landscape, so new entrants either carve out vertical markets or supplement the peripheral businesses of major platforms.

Perhaps due to business setbacks and environmental changes, these new-generation P&G people have learned the 'reset' mindset faster than their predecessors. After all, the traditional business wisdom P&G imparted seems somewhat inadequate in the new internet landscape, and they may even feel at a loss about where to start.

**2. Who Doesn't Want to Stand at the Wind's Mouth?**
Lei Jun's 'wind's mouth' theory not only ignited the entire internet industry but also accelerated and scorched the entire Chinese business society. Countless people have rushed into the internet and chosen the e-commerce industry, dreaming of flying or boarding a ship that can fly.

**The P&G Clan is no exception. Choosing to transition from the relatively 'slow' FMCG industry to the 'fast' internet e-commerce industry is essentially to better adapt to the new era and fly faster.** People in this era generally have a sense of anxiety—anxiety about being left behind by the times, about others being faster, about missing opportunities. This anxiety drives more and more P&G people to abandon their original FMCG job-hopping opportunities and choose the internet e-commerce industry.

After all, who doesn't want to stand at the wind's mouth? But standing there comes at a cost. For those accustomed to P&G's comfortable life, this grassroots internet industry is like another world, with many challenges:

**Challenge 1: Mindset**
The traditional FMCG thinking represented by P&G and the so-called internet thinking both start from the consumer/user, but their logic is completely different: **P&G emphasizes 'well-planned before execution,' while the internet follows the lean startup MVP mindset (execute first, then iterate until perfect).**

The former understands consumers through extensive upfront research and internal P&G validation; the latter understands consumers through continuous trial and error with the product itself. Although the goals are the same, in practice they differ greatly—the former is very slow, while the latter prioritizes speed; the former seeks internal validation, while the latter throws the validation question directly to consumers; the former pursues perfection in validation, while the latter pursues getting on the boat first and buying the ticket later.

So for P&G alumni, mindset change is the biggest challenge. If the mindset doesn't change, progress is nearly impossible, because mindset determines subsequent actions and relationships.

'The first challenge P&G people face when entering the internet industry is mindset. The business logic and way of thinking in this industry are different from P&G's. The faster P&G people adjust their mindset, the faster they can integrate into the internet industry.' — Jerry Huang, CMO of Dianping

**Challenge 2: Pace**
The fundamental difference in mindset determines the difference in pace. P&G has always been criticized for its 'slow' pace, while the internet is praised for its 'fast' pace.

Pace changes exist in every aspect, from strategy and tactics to execution. For example, P&G is accustomed to perfect validation before decisions, emphasizing thorough logic and data; P&G is used to reviewing sales or ad feedback weekly or monthly, and once a bad sign appears, it often takes a long time to validate and adjust. E-commerce, on the other hand, tracks daily, adjusts anytime, and moves forward in small steps.

These differences are not inherently good or bad, as many stem from the nature of the industries themselves. But for P&G alumni jumping into internet e-commerce, they are 'temporary pains.'

'The biggest feeling after entering the mobile internet e-commerce industry is one word—'fast.' The internet industry is a winner-take-all industry. People see the industry's booming development over the years, but if you look closely, you'll see the competition is extremely fierce. Beibei.com launched in April 2014, and within 8 months, its real transaction volume reached No.1 in the vertical maternal and infant e-commerce sector, becoming a unicorn with a $1 billion valuation. Everyone was excited and thought we could take a break.

But after the Chinese New Year in early 2015, our competitors launched promotional wars, and it seemed like overnight we were no longer leading. Everything changed within a quarter. We panicked. We reviewed our strategy and tactics and found no problems; the only issue was that we had slowed down. So we woke up and adjusted. After a quarter, in Q3, we achieved a comprehensive overtake, becoming the only e-commerce platform in the industry with monthly transactions exceeding 500 million yuan. It really takes one quarter to change the industry landscape. So now we still maintain a desperate sprint pace.' — Allen Jiang, VP of Beibei.com/Mizhe.com

**Challenge 3: Culture**
Many people are accustomed to labeling P&G culture as an 'ivory tower' culture of highbrow elegance, while labeling internet e-commerce corporate culture as 'grassroots' culture of the lowbrow world.

Although said in jest, it's somewhat apt. After all, P&G is a century-old enterprise with a long cultural tradition, having formed a complete and stubborn professional manager culture that emphasizes systematic, logical, professional competence, as well as a gentle, patient, and public-private personality. Moreover, P&G has maintained two traditions—'campus recruitment' and 'internal promotion'—making its culture very pure and homogeneous.

In contrast, most e-commerce companies started from grassroots, and their corporate culture often lags behind business development, building systems and culture as they go. Because the e-commerce industry is highly competitive and fast-paced, many companies promote a wolf-like, jianghu culture. Before promotional festivals, all employees undergo 'thought massages,' and walls are plastered with battle slogans, as if in a revolutionary battle. Moreover, with rapid business growth, a large number of external talents parachute in, leading to a coexistence of diverse cultures.

Undoubtedly, these are two completely different cultural environments, posing significant challenges to P&G alumni.

**Challenge 4: Work Methods**
Work methods are an extension of the first three challenges.

For P&G people accustomed to systematic and multi-departmental support, they are already skilled at extracting resources, gaining support from different departments, and allocating large budgets to push the entire system forward.

**But once they enter the internet e-commerce industry, many immediately face a situation of 'no system, no departmental support, and even no budget.' How do you start from zero?** Moreover, tasks are often urgent, leaving no time to ask for resources, money, or support. What do you do? This is a concrete challenge P&G alumni face in actual work.

**Challenge 5: The Boss**
In P&G people's mindset, there is no absolute 'boss.' The boss is just a position, a seat. Who sits in it? Are they capable? How long will they stay? Does the boss even exist? None of that matters. After all, everyone is a professional manager; in the reporting line, there is no eternal boss, only eternal work. The company can function without any individual, and a change of top boss is just news.

**But in the internet e-commerce industry, the big boss is often 'relatively eternal,' while the work may not be eternal.** The boss is a living, personality-filled person, not an abstract position. So the challenge is: Can you get along with this boss? Can you guess what the boss is thinking? Can you do something that satisfies the boss? When the boss recruited you, they said they wanted to build a system as perfect as P&G's in their company—was that true or false?

The above challenges mainly target P&G alumni who take on professional manager roles in internet e-commerce companies. Another group starts their own businesses, facing the same challenges as the first four points, but the fifth challenge becomes 'How to transition from a professional manager to an entrepreneur?' Because they must bear the risk of failure, they have to compete fiercely with other companies while ensuring their entrepreneurial ship doesn't sink. Their challenges are greater and more complex than those of professional managers.

'Kajie went public in just a few years, with sales of 400 million yuan and expected growth of 50% this year. For me, the hardship of entrepreneurship is secondary; the biggest challenge is 'people.' As a founder, how to find the most suitable and excellent talent is my biggest challenge. I think any qualified business leader must first solve the talent problem, build the team, set the direction, and delegate authority to take the company to the next level.' — Bill Xu, Founder of Kajie E-commerce

**3. Does Everyone Love P&G People?**
P&G has always been hailed as the 'Whampoa Military Academy' of marketing, and the market is full of P&G alumni. Whether in traditional industries or the emerging internet e-commerce industry, over the past decade or more, there has been a preference for P&G talent. Why?

**Reason 1: Strong Basic Qualities**
People cultivated by P&G's talent selection and training system are almost cut from the same mold—they all have strong educational backgrounds, learning abilities, curiosity, and highly professional competence and expertise. These are qualities any company seeking stable development desires.

Note: stable development, not pioneering periods. Companies in the pioneering stage are often reluctant to hire P&G talent because it's not their forte; they excel at building brands from 1 to 100 and driving stable growth, not starting from zero. So even if P&G people are hired, they are easily criticized as 'having high ambitions but low abilities.' In many cases, it's not the talent itself but the platform that hasn't reached a stage where such talent can work steadily. Of course, P&G alumni generally don't choose such pioneering companies unless they start their own ventures.

'Strong learning ability is a common trait among P&G people. The internet industry changes rapidly, with new knowledge pouring in daily; without strong learning ability, it's insufficient. P&G people's curiosity and learning ability are a great advantage in this industry.' — Bill Xu, Founder of Kajie E-commerce

**Reason 2: Strong Systematic Thinking**
P&G has a complete brand management methodology and business management thinking system. This time-tested system helps companies quickly capture effective information from complex information flows, process it systematically, and form effective strategies—this is what countless private enterprises (including e-commerce companies) hope to learn from P&G alumni.

In the early years, many P&G people turned to consulting, selling this systematic thinking to various private enterprise owners. Entrepreneurs are not satisfied with external learning; they crave bringing in the system directly through talent acquisition. Of course, the actual results vary by company.

'P&G's experience taught me to see through the rapid development and competition of the industry to the essence of business models, users, and industry needs. How to create a product, how to create a model—everything depends on the OGSM and WHO WHAT HOW framework. This way of thinking allows us to step back from daily concerns like customer acquisition costs, traffic, and competitors' new attempts, and focus on the model and core users.' — Eric Zhang, VP of 1st Pharmacy Net

**Reason 3: Marketing Instinct**
Marketing is almost an instinct for P&G people. Every systematically trained P&G employee, regardless of department, subconsciously pursues brand marketing.

The internet e-commerce industry has long been seen as just a sales channel. As this channel grows larger and competition intensifies, e-commerce companies have to start considering 'brand marketing.' The 'marketing instinct' naturally possessed by P&G alumni is undoubtedly a huge attraction for e-commerce companies.

'Many people think e-commerce is just a channel and Alibaba is just a seller. But that's not true. Alibaba is building a complete marketing ecosystem where brands can be built and incubated. Transforming e-commerce from a pure channel platform into a marketing ecosystem is where P&G people can add value.' — Joanna Wang, CMO of Alimama

**Reason 4: Team Management Skills**
P&G places great emphasis on 'team management' and 'leadership' training, spending huge sums annually on employee training. Employees at each level receive different training, similar to university progression ('P&G University').

These daily trainings have produced generation after generation of professional leaders—they focus more on team collaboration than individual heroism, more on team growth than personal competition, and more on team honor than personal glory. They understand the various skills of team management—this is fatally attractive to any growing company.

Of course, some criticize that P&G people do not demonstrate outstanding leadership and management skills in other companies. Why? Often, it's not due to lack of skill but due to mindset, culture, and personality. This is a very practical contradiction: even if a person has strong skills, if their mindset hasn't changed, they may not adapt to the internet e-commerce culture, and if they can't quickly change the inherent arrogance of P&G people, they may not even get the chance to show their excellent management skills before they pack up and leave.

'My P&G experience made my management knowledge and skills more professional, which allows me to lead teams and partners from different fields and functions, with pure internet backgrounds, and a large proportion of post-90s young people, more quickly and easily in a fast-growing internet e-commerce company.' — Allen Jiang, VP of Beibei.com/Mizhe.com

**Reason 5: Simplicity**
P&G people generally possess a 'lovable simplicity.' On one hand, it's naturally selected by P&G's recruitment system; on the other hand, it's cultivated by P&G culture (being taught daily to 'do the right thing' and 'do things right').

This simplicity refers to a relatively simple and bookish understanding of people and things, as well as a simple, persistent pursuit of dreams (somewhat idealistic). Why is this simplicity lovable? Because in the business world, which is a mixed bag where people come and go for profit, suddenly appearing a group of relatively simple so-called high-end talents is undoubtedly a precious asset for business owners. Of course, if a company mishandles this simplicity or looks down on it, simply labeling it 'naive,' the outcome for everyone is not pleasant.

Now, another trend is emerging: some companies refuse to accept P&G talent, usually because the corporate culture is hard to match with P&G alumni, leading to low retention rates. But this doesn't necessarily mean the company is bad at using people or that P&G people are incompetent—don't easily escalate to value judgments; it's just a simple mismatch, like human relationships: you may be good, and I may be decent, but we just don't match.

There's also an interesting situation where older P&G alumni look down on the new generation. This is often because older P&G people regretfully find that the younger generation lacks the comprehensive skills and hardworking spirit of the older generation. But this may be due to changes in the times, not a unique problem of P&G.

'Now P&G's division of labor is increasingly fine, and the new generation of P&G people are more like screws, focusing only on their own tasks. Their vision and abilities may be far inferior to the older P&G people. This is an inevitable result of multinational companies growing larger, and it's actually detrimental to the future growth of young people.' — Joanna Wang, CMO of Alimama

**4. The Future New World**
More and more P&G alumni are choosing the internet e-commerce industry when changing jobs because they see its bright future. But what exactly does the future new world look like? What role will P&G alumni play in it?

The hardest thing in the world is prediction. No one can accurately predict the future of e-commerce, but there is already a basic consensus—the internet e-commerce infrastructure is basically complete, and the next business landscape will be built on the existing infrastructure, reflected in three main trends:

**Trend 1: E-commerce Socialization**
On one hand, the traditional traffic-led e-commerce model is becoming increasingly difficult and costly; on the other hand, the explosive growth of new media provides new entry points for e-commerce. E-commerce platforms and brands based on influencers and content are leading a new round of e-commerce development.

Today's e-commerce platforms are increasingly unwilling to be just a sales channel; they are turning to content, promoting influencers, and doing live streaming, making e-commerce more social. On the other hand, social media is becoming more e-commerce-oriented. In the past, brands didn't require new media marketing to drive sales, but now they are demanding it, more simply and crudely.

**Trend 2: E-commerce Communityization**
E-commerce is gradually shifting from 'birds of a feather flock together' to 'people of a kind gather together.' Experienced e-commerce users with over a decade of experience, as well as the new generation born in the internet era, are all pursuing more personalized and differentiated needs. These segmented needs will be met by platforms/brands that have deeper insights into specific user groups.

**Trend 3: Omnichannel**
In the future, there will be no purely e-commerce brands/platforms. More and more traditional enterprises are transitioning to e-commerce, and e-commerce brands are exploring offline experiences. The future will be an era of omnichannel marketing and distribution.

The above trends pose new challenges to existing e-commerce talent. E-commerce companies all hope to find talent who better understand consumers, marketing (especially new-era internet marketing), and omnichannel operations—and this is precisely the opportunity for P&G alumni. Some of them have already proven their unique value in the e-commerce industry.

On May 14, 2016, at the Hilton Hotel in Hangzhou, the P&G Alumni Association held an e-commerce themed summit.

Today's business society is full of various types of entrepreneur or senior talent organizations, but they are generally loose alliances based on the same school or industry. However, the P&G Alumni Association is a 'peculiar' organization in the business world. It is a close alliance based on the company, connecting all talents who have left P&G, and organizing regular annual gatherings. To date, the P&G Alumni Association has successfully connected nearly 1,500 alumni and held various types of business summits. In 2013, the association's president, Huang Yong, and Zhong Ming, among others, specifically established the Baojiehui Venture Capital Fund, with the second phase reaching 250 million yuan in scale, focusing on consumption, marketing services, and e-commerce, and actively serving alumni startup projects.

For P&G alumni, the P&G Alumni Association is like a maternal home and an incubator. Several annual gatherings connect people scattered across different industries and different parts of the same industry chain, allowing everyone to exchange, discuss, connect, and incubate on this platform. The successful development of P&G alumni on other platforms is inseparable from the strong organizational support of the P&G Alumni Association. The theme of this e-commerce summit was 'Wisdom · Global · Sharing,' and its meaning is obvious.

**5. Final Thoughts**
Let us shift our perspective from the current internet e-commerce industry to the dimension of all human history. We can see that several iterations of human civilization, including the 5,000-year history of Chinese civilization, have been achieved through 'blending'—the blending of ethnic groups, cultures, bloodlines, and technologies—which has created today's beautiful new world.

The 'runaway' P&G people and the 'advancing' e-commerce people are now undergoing a blending revolution in the e-commerce industry. Let us witness together whether this once-in-a-lifetime blending can create new sparks and derive new business value!

**Summary: P&G Clan in E-commerce (Partial List)**
Note: The above is only a partial list. Due to my busy schedule and limited time, I cannot compile all details here. I will share more details about P&G alumni in the future when I have the opportunity.

Finally, this article took a month to write, with several revisions, and was quite a hassle. All the hard work is only to reflect the truth most objectively and authentically. I thank the P&G Alumni Association for helping me contact interviewees, and I thank the individuals who contributed to this article, in no particular order:

- P&G Alumni Association, President York Huang, committee members Joanna, Alex
- Kajie E-commerce, Founder Bill Xu
- Alimama, CMO Joanna Wang
- 1st Pharmacy Net, VP Eric Zhang
- Beibei.com/Mizhe.com, VP Allen Jiang
- Dianping, CMO Jerry Huang
- SoWOW, Founder/CEO Eric Shao

Written by Mai Qing Mandy, June 2016

[Reprint Notice] Contact the author Mai Qing Mandy (WeChat official account: Mai Qing Essays; email: mqzwp2015@126.com) for authorization. Mai Qing Mandy is a senior brand marketer, currently a partner at SEED UNITED Internet Marketing. Her WeChat official account, Mai Qing Essays, shares only the most authentic workplace, marketing, and life experiences.

Additionally, please follow and support Mai Qing Mandy's 'Beauty Museum' [meizhuangbowuguan]—China's first beauty museum knowledge platform, comprehensively decoding beauty. Future beauty articles will be published on 'Beauty Museum.'


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