Heh, yeah, this is nothing new. There is more than one investment bank in London that hires professional actors to deliver presentations, then the real bankers take the stage at Q&A time. If someone says "now I'll hand you over to my colleague..." that's a dead giveaway. In other shocking news, bankers don't do their own PowerPoint slides either... There are people employed full time to do just that.<p>We're all human, appearance matters, you can either take advantage of this or get out-competed.
Ahh, this brings back memories.<p>Japan has a tradition called "sakura" -- bringing in non-essential people for the sake of keeping up appearances. I've been a sakura, quite frequently. For example, at my ex-ex-job at the technology incubator, one of our incubated companies started selling their technology abroad. They were very happy and even got local press coverage -- a photo on page one. But what can you use as a photo?<p>Enter the sakura! The incubator told myself and our black Australian translator to suit up, and we took a few photos of us looking like we were in Serious Discussions with the CEO and general manager of the (two-man) company. They ran in the newspaper, next to a headline similar to "Startup X In Discussion With Y Firms; Exports Expected This Year".
It sounds like they weren't hiring white guys because the Chinese have an 'inferiority complex', but because the Chinese economy is export driven and successful companies sell stuff to Americans and they wanted to imply to potential investors and officials that they were already working on deals with American companies.<p>In short, they were committing fraud, but because their lie involved fictitious American customers, they needed some white faces to pull it off.
These jobs are more prevalent and easier to snag than you think. I lived in Beijing when I was 21 and after 2 months and with the Chinese proficiency of a 2 year-old, I was working directly with the president of what is now a publicly-traded (NASDAQ) company as a "consultant". Paid my rent for a year.
In Japan there is a similar phenomenon for couples about to get married; it's called "Rent a White Minister." Japanese couples who want a fancy wedding often rent a white guy to perform the ceremony. Very often, probably most of the time, said white guy isn't even an ordained minister in any Church.
There was an article in [can't remember] (something good like the NYT) recently that talked about the phenomenon of black guys being hired as security guards in Arabic countries under similar intentions. The choice wasn't for negative reasons (e.g. cheaper labor or to "scare" criminals), but because they were seen to be exotic (a good trait for the high end boutiques being guarded). I seem to recall the black guys who were interviewed were bemused by the idea but appreciated the work nonetheless.
In 2002 a good friend of mine moved to Shanghai after graduating from college to do an internship for a chinese carpet company.<p>In his first month there he'd given a speech - in English - to 500 of China's most influential carpet executives, all of whom clearly knew more about the carpet business than he did. His boss played translator.<p>I thought it was ridiculous, but clearly there's a worthwhile return on investment or the practice wouldn't still be happening.
Good article, but it never addressed the question I had: who is this posturing for?<p>If this is for people external to the company -- the press, potential customers, or fake-it-till-you-make-it, then that's great. If this is for investors -- people who have put money in the company -- then that would be fraud, at least over here.<p>One of these can be really cool and show a lot of chutzpah. The other can be a sign that the investment-structuring process has serious flaws.<p>Kind of a key question.
You know, if we would prefer that people not judge presentations/companies/etc. according to the race of the person they see (or anything else in the category of "outward appearances easily faked by bringing someone in"), then this sort of thing is really <i>good.</i> It <i>confounds</i> people who do make judgments based on outward appearances; it fools them out of their money, punishes them for their prejudices and induces them to change.
friend of mine went to china on vacation and after a dinner with some acquaintances was asked by someone he met there to serve as an expert on an alternative energy panel at a conference.<p>he's the sort of person who find that amusing, so with no experience, he was a wind energy expert for a night.
I'm reminded of the Republican Party's recent chairman Michael Steele. One of the microscopically few black men, percentage-wise, in a party of almost entirely white people, and he suddenly becomes Chairman, and the timing happened to be just before or just after (I forget which) the election of Obama, a black man, to the Presidency. Coincidence? I think not.
That's another proof that China is on on the rise.
I'm sure pretty soon "Rent a White Guy" practice would cease to exist, because being a Chinese businessmen would be as reputable as being an American.