In an interview with China Business News Xu Jinghong, chairman of Tsinghua Holdings Co Ltd, talked about innovation and his management of the company. Xu has taken the company, which is the controlling force behind Tsinghua industries in the TusPark, from a value of 58 billion yuan to 300 billionyuan since 2012. 

According to Xu, innovation, entrepreneurship, capital investment and structural reform are all factors that contributed to Tsinghua industries’ rapid development in recent years. Under his leadership, Tsinghua Holdings gives its subsidiaries sufficient freedom of business operation with supervision and uses an assessment system to stimulate promotion. This approach, along with advancing technology and rich human resources, has brought about an economic miracle.

Tsinghua Holdings, a giant in the Chinese capital market 

Xu, born in 1963, went to Tsinghua University to study mechanical engineering in 1980 and received a master's degree in 1988. After graduation he stayed at Tsinghua to teach and then at various times was appointed deputy secretary of the Tsinghua Youth League Committee, deputy director of the principal's office, chief of the administrative affairs office, deputy dean of general affairs and principal assistant. 

Even though he is now a businessman, he is still a researcher at Tsinghua University and thinks and behaves like a scholar. He enjoys hierarchy-breaking discussions and speeches, and gets along with his subordinates hoping to spread equality in this giant company. 

In 1999, Xu established TusPark Construction Co Ltd (the former Tus-Holdings), which was the start of his Tsinghua industries career. In 2012, he became the chairman of Tsinghua Holdings Co Ltd, gaining control of all of Tsinghua industries. 

Led by Xu, Tus-Holdings and Unisplendour Corporation have become the core of Tsinghua industries, with total assets of hundreds of billions of yuan. Tsinghua also holds many other successful companies in start-up business services, information technology, biological medicine, safety technology, education, finance, energy, smart cities and innovative culture, including Tsinghua Tongfang, Chengzhi Shareholding, Nuctech, Tongfang Knowledge Network, Global Safety Technology, CapitalBio Corporation, Tsinghua Holdings Habitat Development Group, MOOC-CN Education, Tsinghua Holdings Nuclear and THTI Holdings. There are more than ten listed companies belonging to Tsinghua, investing and doing business both domestically and internationally. 

All these high-tech companies constitute a giant business family that couldn’t have achieved such success without Xu's guidance. 

In discussing the Tsinghua way of development, Xu pointed out that it mainly relies on technology services such as science parks and incubators, and technology innovation, that is to say, taking advantage of the Tsinghua University resources and transforming laboratory patents into profitable products. 

Tsinghua industries also concentrate on investment, acquisitions and mergers, in accordance with the idea that "Industry is the essence, finance is the tool".

"What is the reason for an enterprise's improvement?" Xu rhetorically asked, "In China nearly every company except Huawei has developed itself, with capital's help."

Innovation and reform in Tsinghua Holdings

Innovation is not only a Tsinghua tradition, but is also rooted in Xu's mind.

There is a relationship between innovation and responsibility, to which Xu attaches great importance, saying, "There are obvious differences between doing business and being an entrepreneur, because entrepreneurs can create more value if they are given strong responsibilities." Therefore he has been devoting himself to those issues in his career in Tsinghua, emphasizing the significance of innovation's motivating function and its effect on individual people's skills. 

"I've been thinking about how can entrepreneurs and talents apply their abilities since I came to Tsinghua Holdings in 2012."

To realize his conception, Xu reformed management and set the members free to make decisions. "Actually, most of the achievements come from the efforts of our subsidiaries, not me. My job is to support them, encourage them and make an overall plan," he said.

New circumstances and opportunities

In the interview with China Business News, Xu talked about innovation several times, "There's no doubt that innovative works in modern times all originate from universities."

University-involved innovation has become a trend. For example, Silicon Valley often invites Stanford professors to work for them and entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley are also invited to speak at Stanford University. In fact, thanks to the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980, universities and research institutes throughout the US can be funded by the government for their technical patents, which significantly stimulates innovation.

This March, the State Council published an Announcement of Rules about the Implementation of the Laws of the PRC on Promoting the Transformation of Scientific and Technological Achievements, and drafted an Action Plan to Promote the Transformation of Scientific and Technological Achievements in May.

These new policies inspire researchers and ensure that universities can industrialize their scientific works and creations. 

Recently Xu declared at the Tianjin Davos Forum that Tsinghua Holdings will carry out a "Star Aggregation" plan and a "PootStone" Plan.