Li Yinuo

Li Yinuo (Chinese: 李一诺; born in 1978^[1]), co-founder of Etu Education, a best-selling author, founder of China's influential self-media account "Nuli Society", and leader of the online Nuo Community.

After completing her undergraduate studies at Tsinghua University, she studied for her PhD at UCLA. She then became a Managing Partner at McKinsey & Company before becoming the Chief Representative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's China Office. During this time, she participated in the 2016 World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader. She is a member of the Academic Committee of the Schwarzman Scholars Program at Tsinghua University, and a reviewer for finalists of the Oxford University Rhodes Scholarship application program in China from 2015-2019. She was named as one of the "40 People in 40 Years of China's Reform and Opening-up Returnees" by The Center for China and Globalization in 2018.^[1]

Early life and education

In 1978, Li was born in Jinan, Shandong Province.^[1] Her mother was a supervisor at a chemical plant in Jinan. When Li was seven years old, her mother was sent to Germany to pursue further studies. When Li was twelve years old, her parents divorced. She began to live with her mother. From her mother, Li learned about hard work and taking responsibility. At the age of eighteen, she entered Tsinghua University's biology department.^[1]

Career

In 2005, Li started her career as a consultant at Mckinsey. At that time, she was the only Chinese employee at Mckinsey's Los Angeles office. In 2011, she became a global partner at Mckinsey and was one of the only two partners who graduated from a Chinese university.^[2] She was also the first Chinese female partner.^[2] Her expertise was in the health industry.^[2]

In 2014, Li started a WeChat public account, "Nuli Society," with her husband. Within two and a half years, the account had more than 400,000 followers.^[3]

From 2015 to 2020, Li was the Director of the China Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She focused on health, development, and policy.^[1]

In 2016, while looking for a school for her child, she realized that both international school and public school systems had faults. Subsequently, she co-founded Etu School, now comprising three campuses around the world.^[1]

Starting in 2022, Li has been focused on teaching career workshops through her personal website, yinuoli.org.^[4]

Li serves as a trustee of the 21st Century Education Research Institute and as a board member on the Academic Advisory Board for the Schwarzman Scholarship. She was previously a member of the final selection committee of the Rhodes Scholarship in China.^[5]

Media influence

In 2014, she founded the self-media account "Nuli Society", which has 1.5 million followers, and has published 1,228 original articles so far, of which 238 articles with over 100,000 readers have been shared by other self-media accounts to reach a further audience.

In 2018 she was featured in People (China) with her college classmate and scientist Yan Ning

In 2018, her speech "Where does the power come from" in the Faces Ceremony of Women's Power received 10 million+ plays.

In 2021 she was selected by Fortune (China) as part of their "China's Most Influential Business Women in 2020 (Future List)"

As of now, there are 10 self-media platforms (covering audio and video) contained within Li Yinuo's brand, which boasts more than 12 million followers. Among these platforms, the leading account WeChat Public account has 1.5 million followers, in addition to 2.8 million followers on LinkedIn.

Education impact

She founded the Etu School in 2016, which is dedicated to exploring innovative education with a global perspective. Currently two campuses operate in Beijing and Guangzhou, China, covering kindergarten and K12 stages.

As a well-known school in China, the Etu School has been reported on by a number of media outlets, including OneMoment Talk, This Thought,^[6] and other well-known domestic self-media outlets. These reports on Etu School have reached 5 million+ plays across the internet.

In 2018, Li Yinuo and the teachers of Etu School jointly published the book "School is a place bigger than home", which highlighted the outstanding outcomes of Etu's educational system.

In 2019, Etu School was upgraded to The Etu Education Group. At the same time Li Yinuo founded the Etu Whole Village Online Community, a synchronized online and offline digital iteration built around Etu's innovative education system, to realize the simultaneous and parallel development of school and home education.

In 2023, she was invited by the Japan Foundation as a visiting scholar to extend an in-depth view on Japanese education, during which she visited 20 schools in 8 districts, as well as a number of policy makers and industry leaders in the field of education. She was interviewed by Japan's Fuji TV and Reuters to provide a Japanese audience with her observations on Japanese education.

Culture influence

Li Yinuo has published The Goddess Passes By^[7], Your Dreams Will Come to You by Themselves (Changjiang Wenyi Publish, 2016, ISBN 978-7-5354-8882-4), and Where Does the Power Come From^[8] (Zhongxin Publish Group, ISBN 978-7-5217-3653-3). Where Does the Power Come From has sold 100,000 copies and has been introduced into the Taiwan market.

Apart from her own books, she has introduced and promoted 27 best-selling books into the Chinese market.

Li Yinuo conducted an interview with Michael A Singer ^[9] in 2022, helping the author expand his influence in China.

In 2022 Li Yinuo also conducted an interview with Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche.^[10] Further than that, she invited the producer of Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche's documentary to conduct an interview aimed at the Chinese market and arranged the documentary to run as a fee-pay-to-play module among China self-media, bringing in royalty income for the producer.

Li Yinuo is capable of promoting overseas publications to receive better publicity in China. Examples include:

Interview with Columbia University Professor Samuel E. Abram, author of The Boundaries of Marketization in Education Interview with Stanford University Julie Lythcott-Haims, author of How to raise an adult^[11]

Interview with University of Tokyo Professor Chizuko Ueno, author of Misogyny^[12] Interview with Bestselling author Kazuyo Katsuma, author of Don't Bank the Money^[13]

Interview with the world-renowned AI scientists and OpenAI researchers Kenneth Stanley and Joel Lehman, authors of Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective^[14]

Interview with Guardian UK author Caroline Criado Perez, author of INVISIBLE WOMEN: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men^[15]

Interview with renowned American educator Esther Wojcicki, author of How to Raise Successful People: Simple Lessons for Radical Results

Conversations were broadcast live on Li Yinuo’s self-media account, with more than 20,000 plays and 300-700 copy sales per session. Chinese readers were able to learn about the authors and the stories behind their work.

Community influence

Yinuo founded an online community in 2017 - the Nuo Community, which includes annual, constantly updated courses based on her work experiences at McKinsey. As of now (2023.10) there have been more than 25,000 Chinese participants from 74 cities around the world which have joined this online community. After paying an annual membership subscription fee, the community allows users to learn online, conduct organized themed online group activities and participate in offline communities. The community currently maintains more than 2,100 active interactions online daily.

In 2019, the fifth anniversary of the Nuli Society face-to-face meeting was held, with 12 guests contributing online and 2500 people participating in total. All speakers write for Nuli Society, while having daily jobs as the world's top experts in the fields of finance, consulting, education and public welfare.

In 2022, Li Yinuo organized several offline meetings in New York and Los Angeles.

In 2023, Li Yinuo has organized 6 lectures by renowned scholars at the University of Tokyo,^[16] with more than 2,000 people attending these events, resulting in the formation of a Tokyo online community.

Personal life

Li and her husband Huazhang Shen have three children.^[2]

Publications

2020 "School Is A Little Bigger Than Home"^[5]

2021 "Where Strength Comes From: Facing Every Fear"^[8]

Awards and honors

• 2016: World Economic Forum's Young Global Leaders^[17]
• 2017: ifeng.com's “Top 10 Charity Figures of the Year”^[5]
• 2018: Portrait Magazine's “Women of the Year” ^[5]
• 2018: Center for China and Globalization's “40 Influential Returnees in 40 Years of Reform and Opening-up”^[5]
• 2020: Fortunechina.com's "The Most Influential Female Business Leader in China"

References