In quick succession, Chan moved on and joined a diversified conglomerate, became a fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and member of the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants, helped in the Hong Kong listing of a fashion shoe retailer, an electronics firm, a mining company and a state-owned enterprise. Last year, he was appointed CFO and company secretary of reinforced materials maker Sijia Group, which makes inflatable boats, among other products – at the ripe young age of 32.

 

His is by no means the only sped-up finance career in Asia, especially in Greater China. I have interviewed other senior executives in his age group, including one or two who co-founded a start-up and was then elevated to the CFO post after the firm went public. The combination of China’s red-hot economic growth and limited supply of finance talent is revving up the careers of many Generation Y professionals. Chan’s trajectory is fairly typical. Over the past 10 years, he has held seven finance posts, each one increasing in responsibility and, of course, compensation.

 

I often wonder how sustainable these careers on steroids are going to be. I’ve been told worrying anecdotes in China about young finance professionals on the verge of burnout because the responsibilities thrust on them are too heavy for their capabilities and experience. Older CFOs have also pointed out to me that frequent job changes are preventing younger colleagues from managing a business through an entire business cycle, leaving them unprepared for crisis situations like the recent global recession.

 

Not that Chan is looking burnt out, judging from the two encounters I have had with him. Before the blackout period in the run-up to Sijia’s release of its interim financial report, he briefed stock analysts and media on the company and its prospects. Later, he sat down for a one-on-one interview in Sijia’s Hong Kong offices. “I didn’t plan any of these [job changes],” says Chan, a slight, quietly confident man who is fluent in Cantonese, English and Mandarin. “It just happened.”

 

It was fascinating to get inside the head of someone who went from being a student to CFO of a listed company in just ten years. Chan says he does not change jobs for the sake of changing jobs or because he covets higher positions and increased pay. For example, his first job was as project accountant, and so when that project was completed after two years, he had to look for a new one. He left his second job because the company, which owned a chain of supermarkets in China, wanted to relocate him to Guangdong province, something that the Hong Kong-born and bred Chan did not want to do.

 

In a third case, he felt he could not operate effectively because of the business culture. The Chinese state-owned enterprise, which was huge and sprawling with more than 100 subsidiaries,  hired Chan to be its Hong Kong-based financial controller, qualified accountant and company secretary. “It was like working in a government agency,” he recalls. “It was quite difficult to work with management.”

 

Sijia, his current employer, is almost the exact opposite. The Fujian-based private-sector enterprise makes reinforced polyester fabric composite materials, which are sold to other companies and used for Sijia’s own end products such as biogas tanks, membrane structures for buildings, inflatable boats, waders and protective clothing and large-scale inflatable toys. It prides itself on being forward looking and innovative – Chan says 5% of revenues, which last year came to RMB570 million (US$84 million), is spent on R&D every year.