我的大学 | 梁思聪：我做投资，和时代一起成长

MY UNNC STORY

梁思聪

Louis Liang

2021届宁波诺丁汉大学国际商务管理毕业生

毕业去向：上海 私募股权投资

Growing up in Hulunbuir, Inner Mongolia, Louis Liang basically completed his senior high school courses by self-study. During this period, he found that he likes English, likes to communicate with people with different cultural backgrounds, and hopes to continue to study in an international environment to embrace more opportunities to explore the outside world. Therefore, he chose to enter the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC) to study the International Business Management programme and brought out extraordinary performance with UNNC's diverse culture and international vision through the search of information.

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出生在在遥远而美丽的内蒙古呼伦贝尔市，梁思聪基本以自学的方式完成了高中阶段的课程，在这段自主学习的探索中，他发现自己喜欢英语，喜欢与不同文化背景的人交流，希望能在国际化的环境中继续深造，在成长过程中接触外界拓宽视野。通过信息的搜索，他高考选择了宁波诺丁汉大学并被录取到国际商务管理专业学习。大学期间，他不断用宁诺多元的文化和国际化的视野为自己的成长和蜕变添砖加瓦。

勇敢拼搏，不断蜕变

梁思聪将私募股权投资作为自己的发展方向：“我们做的就是为投资人找到好的项目，同时也希望这个项目可以给行业带来积极的改变，给社会创造价值。” 在这个过程中他也不断地接受挑战，“最直接的困难大概是作为还未毕业的本科生身份，毕竟现在优秀的人才实在太多了”，他坦言，“作为学生我的确还缺少知识的积累和经验的沉淀，但是我也一直觉得学生是敢想敢做的群体，是最有资本去不断尝试的群体。”

梁思聪把自己的 gap year (间隔年)标为大学四年的高光时刻，在结束大二以后，他在自己十分感兴趣的投资行业开始了长时间的实习。他用“蜕变”来形容自己的成长：“在不断的实习工作中，我觉得自己开始了从一个学生到社会人的变化。与很多同学一样，这个过程对我来讲有困难也有迷茫；进入社会以后，会发现现实与学校学习的一些理论有些不同，身处的环境也会更加复杂，带来的影响也可能更多更大。但往好的一方面想，这同时也意味着我可以从更丰富更真实的维度了解到投资行业，能在短时间内快速扩充自己的知识积累和实践经验。因此，即使当时有很大的不确定性，我还是坚持按照自己的想法走了下来。”

用中国市场的认知投资到海外

在聊到为什么会选择做私募股权的的时候，梁思聪将自己的选择描述为“找到一件事来让自己跟随时代一起进步一起成长”。追随自己的兴趣并且受学校国际化视野的影响，梁思聪的主要投资方向是海外投资，重点关注东南亚地区；关于这一选择，他对自己的热情与理想做出了说明和强调：“我一直非常幸运能有机会接触到出海投资这个方向，我们恰好是伴随着中国互联网成长起来的一代，我当时的想法是能够把自己在中国获得的认知带到那些国家，用中国的视角去推进当地的建设，也非常想去见证其他国家科技和新经济的发展。”

梁思聪的海外投资之旅开始于2019年的一趟印度之旅，在几个月的行程中，他接触了一些本土的创业者，并开始了对当地一些投资机会的初步思考，而这段海外实践经历和他强烈的求知精神也得到了前复星集团董事总经理的赞赏。接着，梁思聪又前往东南亚进行投资机会的探索，但却在2020年因为疫情而滞留东南亚；幸运的是，在朋友的帮助下，他成功进入一家当地的公司继续自己的投资之旅。

在聊起投资这件自己热爱并为之奋斗的事时，梁思聪滔滔不绝地分享起了自己的感悟：“从我自身出海投资的经历来讲，不管是印尼、印度、东南亚还有我后来关注的中东地区，他们的整个投资环境都与中国有着很大的不同；我个人觉得国内的投资环境是投资人众多，好的项目尤其是在互联网和物流这块更是让人应接不暇。而反观东南亚这些地区，他们的基础设施和互联网还不像中国已经进入了比较成熟的阶段，可以说是更像十年甚至十五年前的中国。我在印尼投资了很多物流项目和一些比较新兴的消费品牌，在印度的时候重点集中在互联网上。”

海外投资经验的积累和锐意进取的精神让梁思聪得到了许多的认可，在谈起自己相关的经历时他也表现出了小小的兴奋与自豪：“我参与过的最成功的一个项目是一家国内电子签名的头部企业，已经到了拟申报上市的阶段。而今年年初的时候我应聘了一家专注于中东方向投资的公司，叫和玉资本，当时他们收到了上百份简历，其中包括很多硕士与MBA毕业生，但最后公司只招了我一个实习生。”在这段工作中，梁思聪又将对中国互联网模式的研究对标到中东市场上，关注了中东的社交、手游以及仓储物流等领域。此外，梁思聪还是一位出海专栏作家，多次在36氪出海、亿邦动力和白鲸出海等多个平台上发表文章，他说写这些文章的初心是想把自己在国外的亲身经历和学到的知识都记录下来，也乐意与做出海投资的同仁们分享交流。

坚持热爱，生活不止一面

虽然很早确定了成为一名投资人的目标，但是在探索事业以外，梁思聪还有很多爱好。大一时他加入了宁诺最早成立的乐队—Skyline，多次在校内以及宁波各处登台演出。对他来说，生活中不仅仅有学习有工作，音乐也是重要的补给站。除此之外，他热爱体育运动，尤其是爬山和游泳，曾在国内外多次登山、徒步，这也是他性格的映射——心无畏惧，不断挑战更高的目标。

另外，梁思聪在大学五年里也积极参加各类比赛和活动。2019年，他参与了由霍特商学院主办的Hult Prize（该比赛旨在鼓励学生通过创新的商业方式解决社会问题，是全球最大的针对社会问题的学生竞赛），与团队合作完成 ReBloom 项目，运用跨境电商的商业模式帮助非洲低收入人群卖出工艺品，项目最终代表 UNNC 在一众参赛者中脱颖而出，晋级迪拜世界总决赛。

2020年，他参与了全国大学生创业世界杯 University Startup World Cup 2020, 与好友高成志、杨松宸一同参与了多轮的演讲和研讨会，项目涵盖了联合国SDGs（可持续发展目标）和在宁诺学到的企业社会责任等内容；最终，他们从全球各国数千参赛团队脱颖而出，成功入围世界决赛。

扩大社交圈，和志同道合的朋友共同成长

在大学期间，梁思聪广泛接触宁诺校友圈子，多次参加宁诺创投领域在北京、上海、杭州等地的校友活动，并获得了来自校友的认可。在汇丰银行从事投资工作的校友沈俊成将其形容为一位“热情、外向、敢想敢做的冒险家”，而在快手从事战略投资的校友郑子昂说道：“思聪同学让我们看到了筚路蓝缕、不拘一格的‘宁诺精神’未曾断代、薪火相传。有这样优秀前瞻的后浪学弟也让我们这些‘死在社会沙滩上’的老校友们更有动力继续努力，为未来校友们打拼一片生存发展空间，前仆后继不懈努力、星星之火可以燎原！” 除此之外，梁思聪也团结了很多投资、创业领域的同学，并多次举办宁诺内的交流活动。他说：“作为宁诺人，深刻体会到校友networking（社交网络）的重要性，并且正在努力推动校友、同学间产生更多合作。最高的友谊，是相互成就。”

从成长到成人，跳出舒适圈

在被问及对学弟学妹的建议时，梁思聪首先便提到了要主动勇敢地跳出校园里学生的身份，多去实习，在实践中接触投资，“投资是一件非常复杂的事情，想找到好的投资项目要关注的因素太多了，这对很多学生来说的确是很大的挑战，但是在这个过程中我们的各方面能力都会得到锻炼。比如说对一个企业的判断可能涉及到它的财务角度、业务角度、它的现任团队是否可靠以及整个行业的前景问题，这个行业里有哪些玩家、需要怎样的核心竞争力，在接触投资以后我也逐渐养成了深入思考问题的习惯，会有意识地去寻找不同维度的关注点来发现问题、解决问题。”

此外，梁思聪也指出找到自己真正热爱的事情非常重要，要主动地开阔眼界，同时也要拥有自己思考自己判断的能力，“比如在我高中的时候就有开始阅读财经报道，正好那个时候赶上中国的新经济崛起关键的几年，创业极大地吸引了我，在后来的学习工作中，我就一直会有意地进行思考，去了解一个小小的 start-up (初创企业)是如何成长为一个伟大的公司甚至改变整个行业的。与此同时，我又是一个非常热爱旅行、非常热爱交朋友的人，在宁诺我就有很多国际生朋友，在与他们的聊天和国外旅行的过程中，我便开始思考自己做出海投资的可能性，也更加确定了自己想在这条路上走下去。”

最后，梁思聪告诉我们，宁诺的自由开放和尊重包容对于他而言有着重大的意义，同时也表达了对于父母理解并支持自己独特思想和选择的感恩。现在他已经拿到了一家年轻公司的 offer。毕业后，面对疫情给海外投资带来诸多的挑战，他加入了一家投资高科技、医疗方向的基金，一方面拓展他的认知和能力圈，另一方面中国是未来最大的统一市场，资本又在高速发展，未来可以转向海外并购重组、战略投资，协同国内外资源优势互补。他说：“在未来我仍旧会坚持关注出海投资，继续用中国的经验在其他国家寻找发展机会，也始终会坚持相信并践行‘投资是价值创造’这一理念，努力成为一个对社会有用的人。”

My UNNC Story |Louis Liang:Growwith theTimes

Growing up in Hulunbuir, Inner Mongolia, Louis Liang basically completed his senior high school courses by self-study. During this period, he found that he likes English, likes to communicate with people with different cultural backgrounds, and hopes to continue to study in an international environment to embrace more opportunities to explore the outside world. Therefore, he chose to enter the University of Nottingham Ningbo China(UNNC) to study the International Business Management programme and brought out extraordinary performance with UNNC 's diverse culture and international vision through the search of information.

Always be Brave and Seek Self-development

Louis takes private equity investment as his career direction. "What we do is to find good projects for investors, and at the same time, we hope this project can bring positive changes to the industry and create value for the society." When pursuing his goal, he constantly accepted challenges. "The most direct one is probably the status of being an undergraduate. After all, there are too many excellent talents now. It is true that as a student, I really lack the accumulation of knowledge and experience. However, I also think that students are the group who has the courage to learn, to dream about the future and to put their plans into practice.”

Louis marked his gap year as the highlight of his fiveyears in the university. After finishing his sophomore year, he began his internship in the investment industry that he was very interested in and had rapid self-development. “I feel that I have started to change from a student to a social person. Lots of my classmates and friends found this process difficult and confusing, and I also felt the same way. After entering society, I found that the reality is very different from some theories learned from school. Of course, the complex environment might bring a greater impact on whatever you are doing. But thinking to form another aspect also means that I can learn about the investment industry from a more authentic dimension and quickly expand my knowledge accumulation and practical experience in a short time. Therefore, even though there was a lot of uncertainty at that time, I stuck to my goal and faced all the difficulties actively.”

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Learn in China, Explore Aboard

When asked about why he chose to do private equity, Louis described his choice as "finding one thing to keep pace with the times". Following his own interests receiving the influences from UNNC, Louis's main investment direction is overseas investment and mainly focus on Southeast Asia. “I have always considered myself as very lucky to have access to the overseas investment. We happen to be a generation who have witnessed the Internet era in China. So at that time, I wanted to bring Chinese experience to those countries in Southeast Asia, to promote their local construction, and to witness the development of technology and a new economy.”

Louis's overseas investment journey began with a trip to India in 2019. In that journey, he connected with some local entrepreneurs and began to think about some investment opportunities. This experience and his passion for seeking knowledge have also been praised by the former managing director of Fosun Group. In 2020, Louis went to Southeast Asia to explore investment opportunities but was trapped there because of Covid-19. Fortunately, with the help of his friends, he successfully entered a local company to continue his investment journey.

Louis is more than willing to share his feelings regarding the investment that he loves and strives for. “The whole investment environment of Indonesia, India, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, which I later focused on, is very different from that of China. In China, there are many investors and good projects, especially on the Internet and logistics. But, the infrastructure and Internet in Southeast Asia are not as mature as China, which can be said to be more like China ten or even fifteen years ago. I invested in many logistics projects and some relatively new consumer brands in Indonesia, and when I was in India, I focused on the Internet.”

The accumulation of overseas investment experience and enterprising spirit has made Louis get a lot of recognition. When talking about his relevant experience, he also showed a little excitement and pride."One of the most successful projects I have participated in is ahead enterprise of electronic signature in China, which has reached the stage of applying for listing. At the beginning of this year, I applied for Heyu Capital, a company focusing on investment in the Middle East. At that time, they received hundreds of resumes, including many masters and MBAs. But in the end, the company only recruited me as an intern." Louis tried to apply his research on China's Internet model to the Middle East market during this period of work. He focused on social networking, mobile games, warehousing and logistics in the Middle East. Additionally, Louis is also a columnist on several overseas service platform. He said that writing these articles is to record his own experience and knowledge and reference investors who invest abroad.

Stick to Your Love, Live an Interesting Life

Although Louis has determined to seek his career in the investment industry, he develops many interests. Music is important for him, so in his freshman year, he joined Skyline, the earliest band founded in UNNC, and performed many times on campus and around Ningbo. Also, he loves sports, especially mountain climbing and swimming. He went mountain climbing and hiking many times, which reflected his characters: fearless, constantly challenging higher goals.

In addition, Louis participated in lots of activities and competitions. In 2019, he participated in the Hult Prize. The competition aims to encourage students to solve social problems through innovative business methods and this is the world's largest student competition targeting social problems. Furthermore, he and his team represented UNNC to work on the project “ReBloom”, which aimed at using cross-border e-commerce to help low-income people in Africa sell their handicrafts, and the team eventually got into the Dubai World Finals. In 2020, he participated in the University Start-up World Cup, delivered several rounds of lectures and joined seminars with his friends Gao Chengzhi and Yang Songchen. The project covered elements such as the United Nations SDGs and corporate social responsibility learned in UNNC. They stood out from thousands of teams from all over the world and got into the world finals.

Expand Social Network, Growingwith Friends

Louis has a close connection to the social circle of UNNC alumni and has participated in UNNC investment alumni activities in many cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou. As a result, he has gained a good reputation among alumni. For example, Shen Juncheng, an alumnus who works in HSBC, described Louis as an “enthusiastic and outgoing adventurer who dares to think and take actions”. And Chen Zi'ang, an alumnus who works as a strategic investor in Kuaishou, said,” Louis showed us that the UNNC spirit of diligence and fearlessness has never been passed down. With such excellent and forward-looking talent, alumni who like us have more motivation to continue to work hard and exploit better opportunities for future students.” Moreover, Louis also holds many alumni activities about investment and entrepreneurship, “As a UNNCer, I deeply realize the importance of alumni networking, and I am trying to promote cooperation between alumni and current students. The highest friendship is mutual success.”

Get Out of your Comfort Zone and Keep Learning

When asked about his suggestions for younger peers, Louis first mentioned that they should take the initiative, explore the world outside the school and practice more. Investment is a very complex thing. Finding a good project needs to consider many factors, which is really a great challenge for many students. But in this process, our abilities in all aspects will be exercised and improved. For example, the evaluation of an enterprise may involve its financial perspective, business perspective, the reliability of its current team, the prospect of the whole industry: who are the players in the industry and what core competitiveness are needed, etc. When I am investing, I have gradually formed the habit of deep thinking and will consciously look for different dimensions of problems.”

In addition, Louis also pointed out that it's essential to discover your true interests, which requires the courage to keep exploring and thinking for yourself. “For instance, when I was in high school, I began to read some financial reports. At that time, I caught up with the upsurge of entrepreneurship, and the phenomenon of "using PPT to make the company worth tens of millions" truly attracted me. In my later study and work, I will always do conscious thinking about how a small start-up can grow into a great company and even change the whole industry in a short period of time. Meanwhile, I am also a person who loves travelling and making friends. I have many international students in UNNC. When chatting with them and travelling abroad, I began to think about the possibility of studying overseas investment, and I finally determined that this is what I really want to do.”

At the end of the interview, Louis told us that UNNC’s freedom, openness and respect are greatly significant. Also, he expressed his gratitude to his parents for understanding and supporting his ideas and choices. Now he has got an offer from a start-up company in Shanghai and will work with the partners to promote its growth.After graduation, considering the challenges against investing overseas due to Covid, he has joined a fund covering deep-techand health. This will help him acquire new abilities. Also, China will be the largest single market in the future with the acceleration of its capital market. In the future, he will also transition to cross-border M&A or strategic investment, creating more synergies in resources between China and the world. “In the future, I will continue to focus on overseas investment, continue to use China's experience to seek development opportunities in other countries, and always adhere to the belief and practice of the concept ‘investment is value creation’, striving to become a useful person to the society.”

NUBS China

采访: CC | 文字助理：李菁卓

图片、视频：梁思聪

如需了解更多详情或转载，请联系：

诺丁汉大学商学院（中国）

nubschina@nottingham.edu.cn

诺丁汉大学商学院（中国）

微信ID: nubs_china

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