Tiens has been at the center of a scandal over the sale of dubious medicines in Uganda. Behind the story of what has been called the "best boss in the world" there are a large multinational and a shrewd marketing initiative.
Li Jinyuan, a Chinese billionaire who is 57 years old and net worth about 6 billion euros, is the founder and current president of Tien Group, a multinational founded in 1995 which today has more than 8,000 employees and a net profit, according to the latest data, of around 500 million euros. A few days ago, to celebrate the company's 20th anniversary, Jinyuan offered more than 6,000 of its employees a premium holiday in France. Tiens is a multinational that deals with many things, including biotechnology, tourism, education and financial services; on 8 May he held a conference in Nice to celebrate his 20th birthday.
After being in Nice for two days, the more than 6,000 employees moved to Paris, where they were able to visit the Louvre (the New York Times writes that it was entirely reserved for them for a few hours). Employees - about a thousand of whom were not Chinese - in Nice even managed to enter the Guinness Book of Records, forming an inscription on the seafront that was visible from the sky.
To organize travel and overnight stays for 6,000 of its employees, Jinyuan booked 7,600 train tickets, 84 plane flights, and around 30,000 nights in 140 hotels between Nice and Paris, for a total travel cost of around 15 million euros.
The trip was followed and covered by the main international information sites. More than a gift to its employees, according to many (especially Chinese) media, Jinyuan has implemented a perfect commercial operation. A Chinese newspaper, theBeijing News, he spoke of "military tourism"; The New York Times commented: «The mass spectacle greatly embarrassed Chinese observers, who saw in the holiday a plan, a scheme, to achieve a typical goal of today's China with a Maoist-style campaign: making money».
Another criticism made of the trip - and consequently of Tiens, who organized it - concerns Jinyuan's desire to "clean up" the company's image, much discussed for some of its operations and very little known despite its size. Tiens has, for example, been at the center of a scandal concerning the sale of medicines with dubious effects in Uganda.
Jinyuan's initiative has certainly been effective from a media point of view and perhaps also financially. While his employees visited the Côte d'Azur and the monuments of Paris, Jinyuan was received by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, was officially thanked by the French government and even succeeded, according to Chinese sources cited by the New York Times, discussing business, preparing what is thought to be an expansion of Tiens into the French cuisine, wine, fashion and art markets.
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