Voice of Experience: Wei Hopeman, Managing Director and Head of Asia, Citi Ventures, Shanghai

Welcome to The Glass Hammer’s Spotlight on Asia Week. We’ll be featuring profiles of successful business women working in Asia all week long!

By Michelle Hendelman, Editor-in-Chief

Wei Hopeman, Managing Director and Head of Asia for Citi Ventures, stresses the importance of taking risks, embracing the unknown, and cultivating strong relationships in business. Hopeman joined Citi Ventures in 2010 to lead activities in Asia, which is the venture investing and innovation arm of Citi. “We act as the eyes and ears that identify new technologies to bring into Citi to help our company stay ahead of the competition,” said Hopeman.

Career Path

When she first started out in the in financial industry, Hopeman worked as a buyside analyst on the Asian portfolio of a Los Angeles based firm. “The Asian portfolio was about one billion dollars. I was asked if I wanted to move to Hong Kong to help set up the Asian office for the firm,” recalled Hopeman. “I jumped at the opportunity, which was such an amazing experience for someone my age.”

After successfully establishing the Hong Kong office for her firm, Hopeman decided to take a detour from the traditional career path in finance when she received a phone call from a friend about joining a new real estate start-up. “I knew nothing about real estate or running a start-up, but I saw it as a great opportunity,” said Hopeman. “We started in a 10×10 windowless office, raised capital, hired a staff, and developed a business plan. Eventually we grew from just two people to having offices in Hong Kong, Japan, and China.”

Although it was somewhat of a departure from her career in finance, Hopeman values the time she spent growing her start-up. “Even though this experience happened early on in my professional life, it played a huge role in how I viewed the rest of my career. It taught me that you shouldn’t be intimidated by things you don’t know because you can always figure it out if you are smart and hard-working.”

After successfully fulfilling her goals as an entrepreneur, Wei returned to the financial services industry and spent a couple of years working for an Investment Banking and Private Equity firm whose primary focus was helping European multinational companies complete strategic acquisitions in Asian markets. Always looking for the next opportunity, Hopeman decided that it was time for her to expand her industry knowledge by attending business school at Stanford.

“In business school I caught the technology bug and fell in love with the Bay area,” Hopeman said. She continued, “I became a technology investment banker and spent the next eight years learning about emerging technologies and helping technology companies with strategic initiatives.” During this time Hopeman was presented with another opportunity to relocate to Asia and help her firm establish an office in this market.

In her current role with Citi Ventures, Hopeman spends a lot of time thinking about ways to keep Citi one step ahead of the competition. “We are facing some non-traditional competitors in our industry right now like Google, Amazon, and Alibaba who are creating customer centric and data driven financial services with the end user in mind. This makes us think about new ways of conducting our traditional business and how to enhance the customer experience with new technologies and capabilities.”

Women in Financial Services

According to Hopeman, one of the biggest challenges young women entering the financial services industry face is seeking out mentors. She explained, “Historically there has been a lack of mentorship opportunities available for women.” Hopeman expressed how lucky she feels to have established male mentors early on in her career who were willing to help her gain an edge in her career. She stated, “As women who are breaking the glass ceiling, we should be taking the time to mentor others. It is extremely important to give back.”

There are a few pieces of advice that Hopeman benefited from throughout her career that she likes to pass on to young women pursuing a career in financial services. “I think women have the tendency to be a bit conservative at work.” She continued, “What I mean is that we like to gather all of the information we can before providing an answer, for example. While that is important, I think women need to try to be a little more daring, take more risks and be confident.”

Hopeman wants to see more women to be fearless when it comes to accepting new jobs or participating in projects that are somewhat out of their comfort zone. “You have to start down a new path long before you have all of the answers because by the time you get all the answers, the original opportunity will be gone. This is something I have learned from my own career.”

“Women’s career advancement is a very important topic for me,” said Hopeman. Citi has a program called the Citi Women’s Council which helps women expand their networking circles and get mentorships. This program was founded by Debby Hopkins, who runs all of Citi Ventures and Hopeman’s group leader. Hopeman is the co-chair of another organization called Women in Leadership in China.

Words of Wisdom

“If you never take on new challenges and new experiences, then you are never really allowing yourself to learn and grow,” said Hopeman. She continued, “You learn every day. No matter how senior or junior you are, part of making yourself better is learning from your mistakes and your successes.” This is advice that she urges everyone to follow, especially women.

This is valuable to learn regardless of what industry you work in according to Hopeman. “You need to have confidence in yourself,” added Hopeman. “You are where you are because you are smart and hard-working, and you can figure it out.”

Hopeman encourages other senior level women to remember to take time for themselves. “You have to be a little selfish and put yourself first at times,” said Hopeman.

Outside the Office

“I have two little boys that I try to take everywhere with me. When I do have spare time I am spending it with them,” said Hopeman. She also enjoys travelling and loves introducing her children to different cultures.