BS People: Cui Liangjun

Well equipped

Teamwork and innovation are the two tools that can help one survive fierce competition. That’s the motto of the newly-appointed CEO of Chinese telecom equipment provider ZTE, Cui Liangjun, for its Indian operations.

The appointment came months after a controversy erupted over security issues regarding the import of Chinese telecom equipment. The department of telecommunications released fresh guidelines for service providers on such imports. However, DoT is still working on changes to the guidelines, as some vendors did not agree to share the complete source code.

Cui joined ZTE in 1998 as general manager of the development division of ZTE’s Nanjing research & development centre and as vice-president of the centre’s R&D Institute. He joined the Indian subsidiary ten years later in 2008 as the vice-general manager & chief technology officer.

To sum up in his words, the key challenge will be to lead ZTE’s cross-functional and cross-cultural team to succeed in the highly competitive telecom sector in India, which is the fastest growing major market in the world.

The company started its operations in India in 1999 and currently has a total employee count of 3,000, of which about 90 per cent are local hires.

Cui is a graduate of Beijing University of Posts & Telecommunications, with specialisation in information engineering. It is an era of innovation for both technology and enterprise management. With the internationalisation of ZTE, innovations are required to face the challenges of managing a cross-functional and cross-cultural team, he said.