He is 26, the son of Zhang Jindong, one of China's most respected entrepreneurs, and was sent to Italy to run a wealthy club that prides itself on from prime minister to national.
This is the first time that he has made his own story public, you will see the unique personality and tension that comes from the Millennials, and the never-ending and far-reaching education and reverse that exists between fathers and children education.
His story of a bloody war with the giants of the Mediterranean will stir your heart, and it may awaken you to a deja vu dream, and on his body we have all come to realize.
Zhang Kang Yang did not envy himself at least, not now.
This is the first time in his life to attend the shareholders' meeting, and is still being asked to sit in the middle of the podium .He is the controlling shareholder here, but at this moment, he has been under the stage that two or three hundred minority shareholders Sharp questioning took turns bombing for nearly two hours, feeling all the nerves are almost stretched.
Here is Italy.These shareholders are loyal fans of a football club.Zhang Kangyang know the audience is not deliberately troubling himself.My four months ago, his company acquired nearly 70% of the shares of the club, everyone It is clear that his 25-year-old boy, who has been traveling from China and who is currently struggling to hear translation from headphones, has become the youngest ever new director in the club's history.
However, the team's recent battle situation is really bad.From seven years ago became the Triple Crown in one fell swoop, its performance began to quickly sink, lost 'a mess' for five consecutive seasons have failed to top three , Ranking always hovering between the fourth and ninth place, while its one native rival easily won the Grand Slam, compared to fans who were in low sentiment and under pressure from the club.
The question is, when will the team lose? The board can not wait. All are waiting for the new officer to give his opinion.
The scene is getting out of control.
Why did you choose this coach?
'Let's see, what is your next plan?'
An old shareholder who looks like he is in his mid-60s suddenly stands up: "Why does this shareholder speak English ?!" He exclaimed, "Is not we an Italian club ?!
The 90-year-old director knew he could no longer afford to sit in. In this closed chamber, frustration, anger and insecurity were fermenting and the purely business topic had been distorted.He set his mind and rejected the directors' management as himself Continue to block the goodwill of the arrow and work hard to restrain the heart's jerking and slowly stand up from the back of the table sign that says 'Steven Zhang' ...
At the beginning of the club's memorial album, "Classic Blue Black" on page 35, there is a saying: 'A lot of things are easy to follow in the past, be it a person, a country or a football club. 'Fathers' will always be great, correct, and honorable, meaning you will then desperately climb on their shoulders, and no one knows for the height to come.
He is the type of guy in the book who is the new marshal who took over the club from club spirit leader Massimo Moratti and is also the son of Zhang Jindong, one of China's most respected entrepreneurs , Suning's less-manly home, a man who is destined to escape his fate but who still has the power to decide how high and how fast he can climb.
It was a closed door, when no Italian media was even present at that time and no one knew what was happening in that venue.
But a year later, in Nanjing, China, a time difference of six hours from Italy, I heard the story from the person himself and learned from his colleague the outcome of the story:
In Zhang Kangyang less than a minute after the speech ended, the atmosphere once stalemate to the freezing shareholder meeting, eventually ending in a round of applause.
The first public story
We meet at the Suning headquarters building in Nanjing at the end of September, and it rains intermittently outside, just like Milan at the time.
Zhang Kangyang leans on the sofa.He wore a simple black suit with a white shirt neckline open at will.This is a little different from my imagination because there was a blue tie on his neck that day - black suit and blue tie His usual costume, they just formed the representative of Inter Milan.
He had been a mystery in the past, though his identity and movements have always drawn the curiosity of the outside world so that almost all the media are trying to get a glimpse of his sporadic part, but his always understated style has always kept him mysterious.
I looked at the boy in front of the public who led to the infinite interest and conjecture.He was thin, but upright, single eyelid, but from the bottom of the eye project some of the power of people of this age.When serious, the lips unconsciously Form a lower arc; laugh, and immediately after the restoration of a China should be hearty 90. A black hair was habitually blown to the right; left eyebrow Mei Mei under the growth of a not obvious small mole, like Like his father.
This is Zhang Kangyang's life for the first time in his own story, and we are about to talk about, in addition to Suning, accompanied by his growth, he personally in charge of Inter, but also his personal life, and even happened between himself and his father Zhang Jindong Those who never knew the story.
You will see the passionate, unique personality and tension from the Millennials, as well as the never-ending and far-reaching education and reverse education that exists between 'fathers' and 'children'.
Suning became the world's top 500 Fortune in July this year and has become one of the few privately-run companies in China today. Today, Zhang Kangyang is in charge of the Inter Milan Club under Suning Sports. In addition, Suning is vice president of Suning International Lead the team to open up overseas markets.
Just during the writing of this article, Inter still remain unbeaten record in the current season, almost equal Serie A. Almost every fan will not ignore the Inter behind the 'Golden Lord' credit, and all of this starting point Nine years ago, Ren Jun, vice president of Suning received a phone call about.
One day in November 2008, Ren Jun at the meeting suddenly received an urgent call from Zhang Jindong.
'Who is our biggest competitor?' Asked Zhang Jindong.
'Ourselves,' Ren Jun replied.
'I'd rather think Suning's biggest competitor in the future may be the Internet.'
When I heard that my father announced that he would remove the word 'appliance' and make China's 'Wal-Mart + Amazon' into a full-line online and offline store, Zhang Kangyang, who was in junior high school, did not feel surprised. In fact, This is precisely what he considers Suning has to date made the most important decision.
In the past decade or so, the development of the Internet in China has once caused the most domestic traditional entity enterprises to fall into collective anxiety. Before them is a single-choice question: either the transition or the cruel law of the jungle.
There is no doubt that it is from that one trillion yuan of home appliances, 3C market, 30 trillion yuan to the massive market transformation, so that the line was the largest volume of traditional home appliance enterprises in time to avoid the simple expansion of chain stores may Will encounter the ceiling.This even compared with the early 90s of the 20th century, 'anti-seasonal hit' dragged down at that time entrenched in Nanjing's state-run air-conditioning store more tested the smell of this traditional home appliance business and guts.
As of the end of the third quarter of this year, Suning cloud business total annual revenue exceeded 1,318 billion yuan, an increase of 26.98% over the same period last year, the company now has 50% of sales from the Internet .In the early Suning through external acquisition and gradually Plunged into the mother-baby market, gaining large numbers of users and traffic, and as its internet transition accelerated, it also embarked on a more aggressive and aggressive expansion plan to enter the sports industry.
How to get users efficiently is an eternal proposition that retail enterprises have to face, and the sports industry is like a gold mine with great potential for development for the retail giants, including Suning. The former can attract large audiences and participate (See Nike founder Phil Knight's autobiography to understand - he will see on television because athletes wear a pair of adidas shoes in the stadium And if the man was' unlucky 'to take the title, it would not take long before the street appeared to be the product of Knight' s competitors.
Suning is clearly aware of this point, the acquisition of PPTV, the operation of the domestic football club is an attempt to dominate the market to take advantage of the first example.For the further introduction of foreign clubs advanced management experience and technology, and large-scale promotion of international brand influence, Inter Milan into Its next acquisition target.
This stick, Zhang Jindong handed his son.
First met Moratti
In fact, Zhang Kangyang was not a fan before, almost never watching football, in other words, he did not even know Maxima Moratti, the preeminent president of the big name, what it looks like until he ended up at Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan's internship, which officially joins his company's second month - was told he would meet Suning Moratti on behalf of Suning to complete due diligence on the club prior to the acquisition.
It is no surprise that this team has not attracted the attention of a twentysomethings boy, but most of the memory of his father's people leaves a blue-black wave.
Football history is always circulating a team definition of an era of the story.If the 50's in the 20th century Real Madrid, then the next ten years belong to Juventus, AC Milan Serie A domineering Inter Milan.
1964-65 season, Inter reached its climax - in one fell swoop won Apennine, the civil war double crown, and became the first defending European club Champions League Italy team.When the Italian Prime Minister Paul Gentile and Zhang Kangyang met, a sentence impressed the latter so far: 'Steven, do you know? You acquired is not a football team in our country, but a history of our country!'
In fact, it is not uncommon for famous clubs to compete for capital, such as Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Paris-Germain of France, and Inter's "rival" AC Milan ... All of them are controlled by foreign investors. At the same time, the addition of European giants clubs such as Inter will also lead the Chinese domestic sports industry, including Suning Sports, to promote the large-scale expansion of overseas markets. development of.
Although the gross output value of China's sports industry has experienced rapid growth in recent years, it still lags the global average - the total value of sports industry in the developed countries in Europe and the United States accounts for 2% to 3% of GDP; in contrast, this proportion In China has not yet exceeded 1% .According to "sports development" 13th Five-Year Plan "shows that the next three years, the total size of China's sports industry will exceed 3 trillion yuan, the amount of sports spending will account for residents' per capita disposable income of 2.5% Above the huge market space.
Zhang Kangyang arrived at Moratti's house in April 2016. He walked into the house and met the seventy-year-old still elegant old gentleman and his wife.
This is a crucial meeting, and whether or not he will be consulted with the Inter leader will directly determine whether the day behind Zhang Kangyang is better than the 30% stake in the former will also have a decisive effect on the acquisition.
I am afraid no one more than Moratti more love this team.He has in 1998 led the team to win the UEFA Cup brilliant moment was swarmed by players who boarded; also in the bad times of the club out of pocket To pay players wages ...
At this moment, he is sitting with the young man in his early twenties, from Italian culture to talk about the development of China, and then talk about the specialties of Milan .Rimini mushroom risotto, stewed beef bone, Lombard cheese ...... Nothing is about football, but this chat is more than an hour.
One day after each, the coach talked about his impression of Zhang Kangyang to the local media: 'It was an agile, responsive, competent and gentle young man.'
A few months later, Moratti sold all the shares in his hands.
With the convening of the first general meeting of shareholders and a new session of the board of directors, Inter officially entered the era of Suning.
Not a fan
Into the world's largest, most eye-catching, one of the most passionate industries, personally in charge of a legendary team? Zhang Kangyang but did not envy himself that was once highly sought after "football manager" game, he never touched the touch.
We talk about "Everlasting" author Jim Collins has put forward a classic 'three-ring theory' - the theory that, in order to get ordinary people unattainable success, to do like, good at, have economic drivers However, it seems that the first of these three rings, "like", did not seem to be able to set Zhang Kangyang in the beginning.
It reminds me of Angela Moratti, the father of Massimo Moratti, an eminent businessman who founded the Mozart oil kingdom, before the honeymoon with his wife and wife to Rome He did not know anything about football, but that did not prevent him from falling in love with the team wearing a blue and black striped shirt in 90 minutes and buying 125 million liras after 23 years.
As the new head of Inter, Zhang Kangyang does not envy itself, it is not difficult to understand. The most glorious era of the team has long passed away, in the short term, it can not enter the Champions League is still unknown. Pressure on the 26-year-old guy admits that he has encountered many things beyond the plan, but in the end will it lead to failure? Not necessarily, these uncertainties will not stop me from succeeding.
When his son was in college, Zhang Jindong had proposed that he should come up with a sum of money for his son to try to vote for several shares. Due to the high amount given by his father at the time, Zhang Kangyang rejected the grant rationally. However, During his study abroad, he took his family back and irrigated all the bank card deposits to a technology company. The money he left was enough to pay for the next month's rent.
The only stock he was selected was Tesla, but if you asked Zhang Kangyang why he dared to bet so boldly that the Model S was not yet available, he would only get a very headstrong answer: 'With your senses.' Freshman students majoring in finance are simply not spending any time trying to understand each other's basic revenue and cash flow calculations.
Instead of betting on a single stock, he is betting on a man and, besides his own father, Elon Musk (founder of Tesla) is his greatest commercial idol. Do what you want to do. "Zhang Kangyang explained, 'His ideas are abstract, but he not only did it, but also succeeded. Although he encountered many problems that could make people lose sight of the night, he still survived a little bit. '
After starting the stock for $ 40 a share, the adventurous young man traveled with his father and found himself fivefold a few months later.
This 'sense of the' bet also appeared in the Inter former Moratori body who can be proved that this decision-making does not always work - he was Argentina's first striker in 2003 Gabrielle Battisto tower signings to their own team, but in the end, the player was obviously too angry at the time attracted only a "Gazzetta dello Sport," a famous commentary: 'If Moratti from a player He started to like him when he was 20 years old, even if this person later became 30 years old, Moratti also bought him.
As a big contrast, Zhang Kangyang is more like a cold, neutral third party in the field of soccer. "We will undoubtedly strive to get the team back to the top," Zhang Kangyang said. "But you have to step by step, you can not. Do this in a month, or in a race. '
The next fact:
Beijing time at 2:45 on the morning of October 16, 2017, Meazza stadium, Milan Derby Inter beat AC Milan 3 to 2 tickets income 4.5 million euros, creating a new high of Italian football,
Beijing time at 2:45 am on October 22, 2017, Sao Paulo stadium Inter Milan forced Naples, which was forced to end the victory ... ...
(As of the date of this article, Inter with '12 wins, 4 draws and 0 losses' record in the current Serie A standings, which is the self-A 23 years ago, the implementation of the three-point system, Inter get the best results.
From Nanjing to Milan
When Inter's fans are immersed in excitement, went to the forefront of supervise Zhang Kangyang is sitting on the plane back, he used the 'biological clock confusion' to describe his sleep for nearly two months, while Milan has a post-match summary will be Waiting for him.
Nowadays, an average of two trips per month to Nanjing and Milan have become the basic living pace of Zhang Kangyang, and he is trying to use all available time to learn Italian. He has almost no choice - the team needs morale and will only sit in the conference room In the summary of the generals and accompanied fans in the stands waving his comrades can not be the same.
Just last year, one of the biggest sponsors behind Inter, Pirelli's president also made a recommendation to Suning: in Beijing or Nanjing are impossible to manage the club remote control, there must be a club people always trust in Milan.
This intimate scene style education from Zhang Kangyang only a few years old has already begun - Zhang Jindong often bring him to attend various meetings, including the time when Suning large-scale expansion chain under the chain of important stores Opening ceremony, as well as the group annual year-end awards ceremony.
Zhang Kangyang was sitting in the corner of the ballroom, listening to my father's assessment of the performance of each area, usually sitting is an afternoon.A senior employee of Suning recalled to me: 'That only a few Year-old children sit quietly there, even without moving. 'Zhang Kangyang monasteries understand one thing since childhood: a successful business can never be made by one person. Managers sometimes even need to pass A sense of ritual spiritually connects with the entire community.
In November last year, Zhang Kangyang began to govern in Milan, Milan has never dropped any inter-game and Zhang Jindong at the end of last year is the inter-court move, has also been the media summed up a 'Zhang Jindong effect' "Turin Sports Daily" said that after statistics, Zhang Jindong scene supervisory game, Inter had not lost.
When you really stand on the court, you can really understand the football industry's passion and blood.
'I really hard to describe that feeling, the atmosphere is like the Broadway show.' Zhang Kangyang recalled that 'the construction of the European stadium is more vertical, if the auditorium is filled, the lawn and players in the middle like To be eaten the same; Cheers like a tsunami, in a circle around the venue; when the Italian audience habitually shouted the slogan - 'If you do not jump, you are the red and black (the opponent's code ) '- The entire stadium, more than 80,000 people, will be followed by all the beats ... That feeling, like a fierce earthquake, goose bumps will be covered in one second body ... ...'
Zhang Kangyang said he was not a fan, but today, he is standing on the edge of the game, warm hug, hoarse voice can not lie.
When you approach, you can not escape, only love.
In September of this year, when Pirelli president was asked about the possibility of Moratti to return to Inter Milan, one of his answers was published in the summary column by the media with the second largest circulation in Italy:
'(Moratti's return) is very difficult. Steven Zhang is the future.'
Zhang Jindong tears
Every day, almost every Inter race, Zhang Kangyang will receive a call from his father. 'For example, he would ask me:' How is Mauro Icaldi? Help me to send a message, Samir Handanau I was always speaking to him: 'Dad, I'm your son! Could you ask me how I was in Milan?' '
But if time was to be reversed by more than a decade, then Zhang Jindong could not think of it. One day he would send his son far away and he could only hear his voice through the overseas phone every day.
In fact, this father and son alone rarely have time, usually only met once or twice a month in Zhang Kangyang's impression, the father has always been a man with a very strong aura, he always spoke to his father Until the third year of the year -
That night, Zhang Kangyang numerous times to his father's desire to go abroad, the annoyed father finally pulled down his face, so he completely cut off the idea. At that time Zhang Kangyang did not understand one thing: to the anger The father under the top of a mouth.
Responding to him is a silence.
Today he recalled that it was the only time he hit his father so far, and now he finally understands that it is necessary to send a child of only 14 or 15 years of age to a place unknown to himself, , Especially an entrepreneur who is accustomed to keeping everything under his control, is too hard to deal with.
After that protracted cold war, Zhang Jindong still compromised, sending his son to study in the United States. During a visit, when he drove in the car and found the school, Zhang Kangyang was standing alone at the school gate looking around - In a flash, Zhang Jindong cried.
But he did not regret his decision - he witnessed the introverted son is changing, so now often see friends, one more sentence: 'must let the children go abroad and look.'
Zhang Kang Yang and his father Zhang Jindong in Italy to watch Inter training preparation
Zhang Kangyang attended Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and Donald Trump's third daughter the same session.When Ivy 'elitism' prevails, but also coincides with this era full of entrepreneurial ideals, the gradual formation of consumer-oriented millennials Are also struggling to tap their own entrepreneurial opportunities - this desire even more than their fathers.
At the motivation of the society, most of them identify themselves as the most qualified generation of "fantasies." As one of the few of their retrogrades, the "observance of the rules" would even be ashamed.
Zhang Kangyang still remembers from his classmates at Stanford University, saying, 'Who are you senior?' The professor asked, 'You guys, who are still in their seniors, are still sitting in my classroom for lectures now and I think you have failed '
Almost inevitable, in addition to energy, freedom, the pursuit of individuality, this generation has also been labeled as naive, impetuous, quick success.'I think most of the entrepreneurial models that I have seen or heard have excessive 'ideals 'It is quite possible that more than 90% will fail,' said Zhang Kangyang, 'but I will not persuade them because this society needs not only creative people but also adventurous people.'
Chang Kang-yang has a body that does not match with age, most of the time, this steady so that he appears to be alien to his peers, including both childhood father's precept and example, but also based on the external environment is deliberately .Community is often filled with Jealous, but he seldom really envy himself.
On a recent phone call, I asked him if he had listed himself as a to do list, trying to take over the possibility of being outside his family business, and he paused for a few seconds as if he found himself unable to assume the future. What happens in a single step. "Like himself, it seems like he's been living an unplanned life.
He said the days when he remembered feeling happier, the Christmas time of studying abroad, would walk into a Starbucks, take a hot cup of coffee before class, and listen to the store looping around his favorite singer, Michael Bublé sang songs, mostly lyric songs, there is a jazz style, but also with a little classical.
No one knew what was thinking in his mind at that moment, but in just two years it was the big boy who stood alone in a stalemate as the team dived to the bottom The chairman of the Central Bank of Italy shareholders meeting coldly told all shareholders who cast sharp questions:
'We have come, we can do it.'