About Me – Xinjuan Liu

Xinjuan Liu

MA candidate; Graduate Assistant; Intern

Current graduate student at Master of Arts in Education Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship program at UNC, Chapel Hill.

Graduate Assistant of the undergraduate Human and Organizational Leadership Development program at the UNC, Chapel Hill.

Intern at STEMIE Innovation for Inclusion in Early Education of Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute.

I have spent five years as the co-founder, manager and Vice President of this education company.

In 2010, I was invited to be the co-founder of Beijing Learn and Share Company.

I worked as a manager of the overseas consulting department from April 2010 to December 2012. I built a sales team and a service team from nothing; recruited team members, selected the superior and eliminated the inferior; trained each member professional skills; and led teams to achieve goals each year and ensure customers’ satisfaction.

On December 2012, I became the Vice President to be responsible of the overall operation of the company. I adjusted the organizational structure and reestablished teams (sales teams, marketing team, teacher team, service team, HR team, etc.); established and adjusted standard operating procedures for each post; and led the company with 80 employees to deliver quality services and achieve operational goal.

In 2015, a large company acquired our company. By then, the company had doubled sales than previous year’s, and 30% of our 80 employees had worked with us for four years, proving that we had earned their trust. It was hard to sell a company we had started from nothing and yet survived five years of constant intense pressure in highly competitive markets, but what I gained through my devotion to this career has stayed with me for many years: I gained a deep and extensive experience in the overall operation of a company.

To summarize my past experiences in counseling students applying to American universities, I have written and published several books. Two of them are To Study in the United States: Undergraduate and To Study in the United States: Graduate. I hope these could offer some guidance for Chinese students who want to pursue their undergraduate and graduate study in the United States.

This is the front and back cover of my book “To Study in the United States: Undergraduate” designed to provide guidance for Chinese students going to the U.S. for undergraduate studies and the link of the book.

This is the front and back cover of my book “To Study in the United States: Graduate” designed to provide guidance for Chinese students going to the U.S. for undergraduate studies and the link of the book.

I have spent two years as the co-founder and COO of this technology company.

In 2016, my partner and I started the Beijing One Rock Educational Technology Company and we attracted a new partner CTO to join. One rock was an educational SaaS company providing WeChat-based learning system for small and medium-sized educational institutions in China. As the COO, I was responsible for the overall operation of the company, including collaborating with CEO, product managers, and programmers on product development, managing sales team, and developing business plans and marketing strategies to increase revenue streams, etc. In September 2017, after contacting dozens of investors, my partners and I ended up getting a seed stage investment of $250,000, which was a recognition of our company.

Some scenarios of one rock system:

Student’s performance which can be seen from student’s side and teacher’s side.

Student’s learning records which can be seen from student’s side and teacher’s side.

More scenarios can be seen here: more scenarios

As we were about to sign the letter of investment intent, my partner and I got a tempting offer from a large company, EIC, to join them to start a new branch, and we accepted. I hoped that EIC, with more than 4000 employees, would give me more management experience and improve my skills.

I have spent four years working as a Director of Operations to establish two branch schools in this company with over 4,000 employees.

In October 2017, after accepting the offer from EIC, which operates almost 50 branches in China, I worked to set up the Education Planning Institute (EPI) branch school in Beijing , whose focus was on standardized test training.

In 2018, our sales performance ranked number four among 15 branch schools, despite the fact that we were a newly established branch compared to other 10-year history schools and at the same year, I began to set up the EPI in Qingdao city to replicate the success of the Beijing center.

In this company, I officiated product and curriculum designs for each school; developed and managed multiply cross-functional teams (marketing, sales, teachers, etc.); and initiated marketing and curriculum cooperation with over 20 subsidiaries each with approximately 50 employees. To start a business from nothing in a large company is not an easy job. I learned how to ensure the satisfaction of customers, and I acquired holistic thinking skills to avoid mistakes.

This is the launch of the Beijing EPI in 2017.

Throughout these years of entrepreneurship and leadership experience, I have been constantly challenged and have been overcoming various challenges in managing companies. I will take on new challenges in the US in the future and I will use my previous years’ experience and all the valuable skills and knowledge I gain from the MEITE program to continue the work I have actually been doing all along: Finding the best possible ways to produce the best possible solutions for students, companies and schools.