The Accidental Professor

In life, sometimes things happen for a reason. Just consider the case of Yan Ma, who while working as a successful broker at Merrill Lynch back in 2001 took a phone call that changed the course of his professional life. The caller, a corporate relations manager at City University of Seattle, was actually trying to contact an adjunct CityU of Seattle faculty member who was working at the brokerage firm at the time.

“Somehow the receptionist accidentally routed the call to me and I picked up the phone and told him that unfortunately I was not the person he was looking for,” recalls Ma. “But I was polite and asked how I could help him and that’s when he told me about teaching at CityU. So that’s how I eventually started working at the University.”

Luckily Ma—now a highly regarded adjunct professor in the School of Management at CityU— was open to the idea of teaching. An accomplished and astute business executive, Ma has worked as a consultant for Panzita & Associates, a company that conducts due diligence for venture capital firms and develops business models and strategies for start-up companies. He also has served as the CEO of two companies in his native China. He led Beijing Masterpiece Technology Co. Ltd, then a former provider of Windows-embedded solutions for industrial devices and a Microsoft Gold Level Partner before it was bought out by Beijing Holdings Co. Ltd. He later was at the helm of Beijing Henotech Co. Ltd, a supplier of customized analog semiconductor chip in niche markets, such as textile machinery and measuring devices. Today, in addition to being a CityU professor, he also works for a marketing research firm.
Even with his extensive professional track record and education, Ma, who received his MBA in 2000, viewed his professorship as a challenge and a chance to learn something new. He also understood that entering the teaching profession would help him grow on a personal level while also helping others attain their educational and professional goals.

“When I began teaching at CityU five years ago, I saw these business professionals (my students) working so hard to get an education, to be further trained, and here I was in a position to help them and that really got me excited about teaching,” Ma explains. “I also started to see the value that I could provide them, especially when I see students, like I do now, who have made great progress in learning—I feel that this is the greatest reward that I could ever have.”

Ma’s approach in the classroom is anything but boring. Not only is he provocative, exposing students to new ideas, approaches, and principles in business management, his ultimate goal is to be an inspirational professor. This, some might argue, could be accomplished by just sharing his own extensive work experience with the class. But Ma believes letting students witness their own progress is the best way to inspire them.

In past two quarters, for example, while teaching a strategy management course, Ma has asked his students to create a new product—an on-the-go music device for the typical teenager music fanatic. First, they were asked to pretend the IPod did not exist and then to narrow down the product’s attributes and describe them (e.g. what does a “cool” shape look like), list all of the possible end user scenarios (e.g. it can fit in a pocket), as well as design the shape of the device. Ten weeks later, these students successfully created a music product that met the criteria for this end user. “Each time I have the students complete this exercise I get a great result. For them, creating a great product is no longer a mystery. They realize they can actually do it, and that’s very inspiring for them,” he says.

Ma also uses plenty of case studies in class so that students can understand the roadmap certain companies have taken to become successful. “After analyzing these companies and then pretending they are owners of a small company themselves, students are able to realize, ‘Oh, business is not that difficult; I understand the basic principles; I know how to solve the problem now.’ So that’s something that has been really great to see.”

A strong teacher-student relationship also is vital to the success of his students as well as himself as a teacher, says Ma. Whether he is teaching a class on CityU’s Seattle campus or abroad in China, Ma values the continual, face-to-face interaction he shares with his students. This allows him to ask them questions and receive immediate feedback so that he can make continual adjustments to the class curriculum as well as his teaching style.

“The ultimate goal is to understand the students so you know what you do well as a teacher and what you can improve upon, so I keep communicating with them. Over the years, I have seen students sign up for my classes, again and again,” says Ma. “It’s been truly rewarding.”