Arnold Ma shares insights on China’s growth, a glimpse of the future from China, and a new modern Chinese culture impacting society and consumerism.
China has grown at almost 10% per year over the last 40 years, but more importantly, it has lifted 800 million people out of poverty. That’s almost the entire population of Spain, Portugal and Latin America combined.
This pace of growth has left the country and its people hungry for changes (such as improvements in products/services) and very open for innovation and adaptation of new technology. Not only because they are used to rapid changes from socio-economic developments, but also because ROI of convenience vs ‘change investment’ is much higher when you are leapfrogging.
The talk will expand on the phenomenon of China’s habit to leapfrog tech, rapid innovation in service design and it’s move from a nation of copycats to a nation of innovators.
We need to look East for the next trends, the next disruptors, or the next big things that are going to transform our lives.
The talk will also focus on what the next ten years may look like. How we can obtain a glimpse of the future of how technology will change our daily lives by looking at Chinese tech giants, by looking at the changes that are happening in China right now.
Arnold Ma is a speaker, writer, podcast host, and the founder of Qumin, the UK’s first Chinese Digital Creative Agency.
Born in China, which at the time was still known as ‘the poor man of Asia’, Arnold (Chinese Ai Fu) moved to the UK in 1996 which was then still worlds ahead of China. By 2011, China was re-emerging on the global stage, but Western brands were not ready to engage with China. Hence why Arnold founded Qumin, at the age of 25, the first and largest Chinese Digital Creative Agency in Europe.
Qumin’s mission and Arnold’s bigger purpose in life became to ‘Open The World To China’. Owing to his bi-cultural upbringing and work scope, Arnold knows both Western and Chinese markets, businesses and, most importantly, he understands the different people and cultures. He knew to focus on the users behind the platforms, the subcultures behind the hashtags and the audiences behind the consumers. Only then could one conceive, design and build experiences that connect global brands with Chinese people.
For almost a decade now Qumin has helped copious Western brands including Sony, Man Utd, Mars Inc, General Mills, Unilever and many more to understand and engage with Chinese consumers. Notably, Qumin was responsible for the Chinese launch and ongoing consultancy for Skyscanner until its exit to China’s CTrip, the largest British tech exit to this day, valued at £1.4bn. Arnold has also helped Chinese companies including Bytedance, the world’s most valuable Tech start up, China Mobile and Huawei with their Western marketing.
In addition to being quoted in various media outlets including the Financial Times, Campaign, Reuters, McKinsey, The Drum, and more, Arnold is regularly invited to deliver keynote speeches on China, most recently at YMS London, FUTR Europe, NKF Fintech Summit in Germany and the Data and Analytics Summit. Topics of talks range from Chinese technology development and platforms to youth culture, but all put people and cultures at the core.
Arnold‘s keynotes are:
- A glimpse of the future from China
- Deviant Youths: Chinese Subcultures
- Chinese Youths – how to build hyper relevant campaigns to attract Chinese students
- How Chinese youths are travelling the wold
- Your Digital Analytics Future Is In China Today
- Dethroning WeChat, how short-form vertical video is changing Social Media in China
Contact us if you would like to engage Arnold Ma to speak at your next event.