Chief Executive of International Education, Pearson
Dear Li Pengyi,
It was great to see you last month. I understand that there are two great causes for celebration:
* Your nomination as “Person of the Year 2010” in Chinese educational publishing;
* Your success in overcoming all the obstacles and bringing the China Education Publishing & Media Group into being.
As we discussed, we’d love to develop a deeper, more strategic relationship with CEPMG.
With congratulations and best wishes,
Yours sincerely
John Fallon
Runald G. Dunn
President & Chief Executive Officer of Cengage Learning
Li Pengyi has always made me feel welcome and comfortable in China since we first met in Beijing several years ago.
He is an accomplished executive who consistently demonstrates many qualities that I value greatly, including integrity, intelligence, creativity and determination.
He is a strong supporter of true international cooperation and is as willing to share his own knowledge and experience as he is to learn from others.
He is a man who, through a combination of professionalism and personality, earns his respect and admiration of others.
For Cengage Learning, Li Pengyi is an esteemed business partner. For me, he is a friend.
Sincere congratulations, Pengyi, on being named 2010 Educational Publishing Industry Person of the Year.
Many congratulations on your appointment as President of China Education Publishing and Media Group.
At HarperCollins we know you will bring to this role the fruits of your deep personal experience of both Chinese and international publishing. In the past you have pioneered many forms of innovation, commercialization and internationalization, all of which I am sure will be keynotes of this new Group.
The establishment of China Education Publishing and Media Group will create a powerful and hugely influential integrated educational publishing body. HarperCollins will use its best endeavours to seek forms of partnership both within and outside China, in print, digital and educational service domains.
Every success to you and CEPMG.
Robert Scriven
Christopher Paterson
former Chairman of Macmillan Education
I am happy to write a few words to honour my friend Mr Li Pengyi.
I first came across Mr Li in February 1998 on a visit to Beijing with the Publishers Association (UK). I realised immediately that I was dealing with a man of many talents and a remarkable publisher.
By the year 1999 new opportunities were developing fast with the opening up of the primary school English market for the first time and FLTRP invited Macmillan to be copublishers of New Standard English. It was a mark of the trust that Mr Li had already engendered that the first contract for New Standard English – a project that eventually entailed the expenditure of over RMB 10 million - was handwritten in 7 simple paragraphs in Chinese.
He leads by example – polite, friendly, welcoming, charming, and unconfrontational – with a particular shake of the head, a twinkle, and a request for more time to think about the matter when there is a divergence of views.
Mr Li has a unique understanding of the place of the English language in the world, and its evolving role for Chinese society and the Chinese economy. FLTRP’s future business is firmly founded on this understanding. His bold moves to consolidate ELT copyrights, to build the FLTRP headquarters building, to expand into Basic Education, and to build the Dashing Conference Centre among others, have been based on the total confidence he has in the strategy.
In fourteen years as President of the Press Mr Li’s achievements have been significant and widely recognised by a series of awards in Beijing and nationally. His gradual emergence on the world’s publishing stage was recognised by Oxford Brookes University’s award of an honorary doctorate in 2005 for “leading the modernisation of Chinese publishing” and for his prominent role “in the spread of English language across all levels of Chinese education in recent years”.
Li Pengyi’s contribution is not limited to his public face. He has an ever widening circle of publishing friends and colleagues with whom he generously shares his enthusiasms for Chinese traditional music, Peking opera, and Chinese cuisine. Mr Li’s enthusiasm to entertain and to share all things Chinese with his international friends is matched only by his enthusiasm in engaging with foreign friends and their own cultures.
