On June 1, 2026, Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business opened its permanent Beijing campus. For CKGSB, this marks the beginning of a new chapter: a moment to revisit the ideals on which the school was founded and to respond, with renewed purpose, to the demands of a changing world.
The campus is located in Ciqikou, a district that has served as a transportation and commercial hub in Beijing since the Ming dynasty. Our Founding Dean, Xiang Bing, has translated it as “China’s Gateway.” “Ciqi” (瓷器) refers both to porcelain and China; “Kou” (口) suggests a portal through which people, ideas, capital, and opportunity can move in both directions. Hence, a gateway rooted in China’s commercial and cultural history, and a gateway between China and the world.
CKGSB was born in 2002, the year after China entered the World Trade Organization (WTO)— when China opened more fully to the world, and the world began to rethink China. The school’s own journey has since been inseparable from China’s rise: from a fast-growing economy integrating into global markets to a country now helping shape the next phase of global business, technology, and innovation.
Old assumptions about trade, technology, and globalization are being challenged. Renewed tariff battles are testing the world trading system. The rise of DeepSeek and AI agents has forced a reassessment of China’s technological capabilities and signaled a shifting balance in global innovation. Great eras require great companies. They require great entrepreneurs. They also require great business schools.
CKGSB was created to cultivate decision makers to endure across cycles. These decision makers and their companies who survive cycles usually share three qualities.
First, they are long-term builders. From Midea and Nongfu Spring to the Kadoorie family and Fuyao Glass, the common thread is patience, discipline, and commitment. These companies do not chase every trend. They build core capabilities over time, while remaining alert to the direction of change. They understand that greatness is not measured by success in a single moment, but by relevance across eras.
Second, they move from imitation to originality. In new energy, smart manufacturing, biomedicine, artificial intelligence, and other fields, Chinese companies are no longer merely competing under rules written elsewhere. Increasingly, they are helping to write new rules. DeepSeek showed the world that China is not only a manufacturing power, but an innovation power. Great companies create original products, original models, and, ultimately, original management wisdom—experience that can speak not only to China, but to the world.
Third, they combine global vision with social responsibility. Since its founding, CKGSB has emphasized global vision, humanistic values, social responsibility, and innovative spirit. Today, climate change, technology ethics, inequality, and sustainable development are no longer peripheral to business strategy. They are central to it. Great companies create commercial value while helping solve the defining challenges of our time.
These are the companies CKGSB seeks to help build: enterprises with the patience to endure, the originality to lead, and the responsibility to contribute beyond themselves. To seize the pulse of the times and help build great companies, CKGSB will serve as China’s Gateway to continue to help Chinese entrepreneurs engage the world—not only developed economies, but also the broader Global South and the many emerging markets where the next chapter of global growth is being written. At the same time, CKGSB aims to help the world better understand China.
One of CKGSB’s core philosophies—coined by our Founding Dean Xiang Bing—encourages leaders to “look at the Earth from the moon,” or embody a long-term perspective. That philosophy has guided our own school for twenty-four years. Rather than following the beaten path of existing business schools, whether in China or abroad, we instead sought to innvoate. From creating first principles, through understanding the forces that are reshaping the world, to clarifying the ideas that define effective leadership, and equipping entrepreneurs to turn insight into action. This commitment has driven our pioneering innovations in management education and brought together successive generations of leaders who share a common aspiration.
The result is an institution with a robust and unique academic foundation.
Today, CKGSB is a destination for world-class management scholars and a leading choice for academics returning to China from top global institutions. Many of its 53 professors previously taught or held tenured positions at world-leading universities, bringing together rigorous research, global perspective, and deep industry insight. Recent appointments—including Neng Wang, formerly a tenured chair professor of finance at Columbia Business School; Christopher Hsee, formerly a tenured chair professor of marketing at Chicago Booth; and Tianshu Sun, formerly a tenured chair professor jointly appointed by the business school and computer science department at the University of Southern California—reflect the school’s continuing ability to convene global academic talent.
That intellectual foundation has, in turn, attracted many of China’s most influential business leaders. Over the past twenty-four years, CKGSB has convened more than 25,000 senior executives, entrepreneurs, and next-generation business leaders. In the 2025 Fortune China 500 list, 71 companies were led by CKGSB alumni. More than 500 publicly listed companies are now led by CKGSB alumni, a new milestone in the school’s history.
The same influence can be seen among next-generation disruptors. CKGSB alumni include more than 150 founders or chief executives of unicorn companies valued at over US$1 billion. Among China’s ten highest-valued unicorns, five are led by CKGSB alumni.
Together, these leaders embody the breadth of China’s business transformation. Across hard technology, consumer innovation, supply-chain resilience, and global expansion, CKGSB alumni have helped shape the forces redefining Chinese business—and, increasingly, the global economy.
Going forward, we will continue to look at the Earth from the moon: to think beyond one company, one industry, or one country, and to see the world from a higher perspective. We will continue to understand the forces shaping the times, clarify the path forward, and refine the tools of action. And we will continue to stand with generations of entrepreneurs as they confront real challenges and define the future of Chinese and global enterprises.
When CKGSB reaches its thirtieth anniversary, I hope we will look back and say that the opening of the permanent Beijing campus in 2026 marked a new beginning for CKGSB: the moment when a leading business school began its journey from excellence to greatness.
This article was originally published in Chinese on the Economic Observer: https://www.eeo.com.cn/2026/0622/925400.shtml
