Sharing His Sense of the World

School visitor James McGregor spoke in Chapel on Sept. 10.

BY KRISTIN DUISBERG

The SPS community greeted the first guest speaker of the school year in chapel on Sept. 10. Businessman, author and journalist James McGregor spoke about his 30-year career in China, the lessons he learned about ambition and personal fulfillment reporting for the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones on the venture capital boom in that country — and the manner in which his worldview was shaped by his experience as an infantryman in Vietnam, service for which he earned a Purple Heart.

The Greater China chairman for the public affairs and strategic communications consulting firm APCO Worldwide, McGregor advises a variety of multinational firms regarding their business, political and communication strategies in China, and he is the author of two nonfiction books that reflect his vast experience with the Chinese government, culture, and business environment. After serving as bureau chief in Taipei and Beijing for The Wall Street Journal, McGregor served as CEO of Dow Jones in China and founded a China-focused research and advisory firm for hedge funds. He also served as chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China and remains involved in that organization’s — and others’ — U.S.-China relations activities.

In his opening remarks, McGregor spoke about growing up in a family of nine children in the Upper Midwest, and how enlisting in the Army at age 17 and serving in Vietnam alongside young men from backgrounds unlike his own informed both his perspective on humanity and his calling as a journalist.

“I was from Duluth, Minnesota, which had very few minorities,” McGregor shared. “And … my squad, where you’re all depending on each other to save your life and to be safe and fight a war together, was very mixed race. And it really helped me expand my horizons and learn that you’ve got to get to know different people, and once you know them, everybody is the same. And when you’re in a war and you’re depending on each other for your life, gender doesn’t matter. Race doesn’t matter, creed doesn’t matter because you’re all people together. And what came out of that for me was a couple of things. One was a lifelong hate of any form of discrimination. It also kind of led me to journalism, because I saw what was going on in Vietnam and I saw what the papers were reporting, and they were two different things.”

Following journalism school and a stretch of police and prison reporting in the United States that underscored for McGregor the role that both empathy and a solid moral compass play in reporting, in 1985 he moved his family to Taiwan — in time to witness the birth of the first (and only) Chinese democracy. During the 1990s and 2000s he reported on China’s economic rise as young citizens returned home after studying in the United States and established technology companies that received venture capital funding and generated tremendous wealth … a phenomenon, he observed, that didn’t always guarantee personal fulfillment.

“What is really rewarding, and I saw this with some [individuals] who were wide open enough to do this, is using the joy of accomplishment and helping others,” he said. “I had hundreds of people work for me over the years, helping them get into good schools, helping their kids get into good schools, watching them flourish, helping them get better jobs. That’s what really is fulfilling in life, is helping others and seeing them move ahead. That’s where true joy comes from.”

McGregor’s chapel talk was part of a larger visit coordinated by the SPS Office of Chaplaincy, the Languages Department, and the Chinese and Winant Societies that included a reception with Chinese Society, Chinese language program and Winant Society students in the Sheldon Interfaith/DEIJ common room, a visit to Chinese Language Teacher Zhaohong “Jenny” Li’s Chinese Seminar class and lunch with SPS Chaplain Rev. Chuck Wynder’s Ethic of Care and Beloved Community class.