Ben Tse Profile
Ben Tse, World player
From a poor boy in Hong Kong to AccountMate CEO, Tse used the strengths of Chinese and American cultures to build a thriving global business.
David Armstrong, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, December 9, 2001
©2001 San Francisco Chronicle
There was a room with a bed and not much else, and a boy and his mother who lived there. The room was 75 square feet, maybe less. There was no view because there was no window in the room, one of 10 tiny living spaces in a flat-turned-rooming house. The city was Hong Kong. The year, 1965.
"Hong Kong was a poor city back then," he recalled. "We lived below the poverty line in a poor city."
The boy, Ben Tse, grew up to be the chief executive of AccountMate, a Marin County company that writes and sells software for accountants.
Today, at AccountMate's main office in Novato, there are plenty of windows, and the view is serene. From his office, Tse can look out on a nature preserve where ducks glide in for soft landings..
Tse, now 47, overcame a series of hurdles that would give Horatio Alger pause.
His is a story about how an ambitious and resourceful immigrant leveraged personal charm, language skills and intimate knowledge of Chinese culture and business to launch a company in the United States that incorporates China as a core part of a global business.
Last year, Tse and business partner Dennis Lo sold AccountMate for $8.5 million to a larger company, the South African firm Softline. Tse has stayed on to steer AccountMate as it continues to grow.
In the process, he has done something relatively few Asian Americans have managed to do: crash through the glass ceiling.
"Many Asians are successful at midlevel jobs, but to get into the executive level, you have to know American culture and be assertive," Tse said. "Asian culture tells you to be humble, modest, conforming to the group. Americans value individuality, confidence, outspokenness. There is discrimination, but you have to know the American way. This cultural dynamic is confusing for many Asian Americans."
It's been a long, arduous journey for Tse from the slums of Hong Kong to his executive office in Novato.
Tse, who as a child survived a bout of polio that left him with a slight limp, toiled in Hong Kong's factories while he was still a schoolboy, tutored other children to earn money and, at 18, went to work as a trainee in an optician's shop.
Then he caught a break. He crossed paths with Marjorie Lichtenstein, who now lives in San Rafael and was then visiting Hong Kong as a tourist. Lichtenstein bought a pair of eyeglasses at the optician's shop and it fell to Tse to deliver them to her hotel.
"He came in and started talking," Lichtenstein, now 93, recalled. "He said 'I can't learn anything more in China. I want an American education, could you help?' He was just a young kid, but he was as self-possessed as he is now. You couldn't not be a friend to Ben. He was so charming and gentlemanly."
It was 1974, and getting a work and residence visa wasn't easy. But Lichtenstein, impressed by the teenager's ambition and brains, went to work.
HELP FROM CONGRESSMAN
To cut through the red tape, Lichtenstein called on powerful Congressman Philip Burton, D-San Francisco, who served in the House from 1965 to 1983. Burton phoned the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong on Tse's behalf. Tse got his visa. Once in the United States, he worked for Lichtenstein at her home in Larkspur and also studied accounting.
Simultaneously, Tse studied American culture and polished his English. Once out of college, he practiced accounting, all the while wondering what more he could do. In 1980, just as China was beginning to open up, he co-founded a tour operator specializing in the China market. It was there that he met Lo.
Shortly thereafter, Lo, who wrote the software for the tour company, came up with the idea to combine his skills as a software programmer with Tse's knowledge of accounting to create a new business venture. With a $100,000 stake from Lo's family, the men began selling software to accountants, and in the 1990s, with AccountMate doing well and China developing a business culture,
they took the next logical step: writing accounting software in Chinese and hiring Chinese programmers to develop it in China's low-cost environment.
It was then that Tse called on his experience. Tse, a native Cantonese speaker who learned English, mastered Mandarin, the official dialect of China, from his wife, Dawn, who is from Beijing. Using his knowledge of Chinese, the culture and both Chinese and Western business, Tse was able to get out in front in the flood of American companies rushing to the China market during the 1980s.
As the world's economies have become increasingly interdependent, Tse believes his broad international background has given him a huge advantage.
GLOBAL GROWTH STRATEGY
AccountMate, which he and Lo started in 1984, is pursuing a global growth strategy with Asia an integral part. The company, he said, is trying to hold down costs by taking advantage of low labor costs of skilled personnel overseas.
Before its sale, AccountMate had opened a technical support office in the Philippines city of Cebu, which employs 35 people, and a 20-person office in Beijing, China's capital, where the company employs computer scientists who write software in Chinese.
AccountMate pays Chinese computer scientists at above-market rates for China; but since those rates are just one-sixth to one-eighth what comparable talent would command in the United States, the company can contain its costs.
"China is manufacturing many American products," said Tse. "We opened our Beijing office in June 1998, lowering costs and diversifying operations. Because of that, we were able to weather the dot-com thing. I saw that coming in 1997. That's why I went over to China."
Softline plans to continue expanding in Asia, especially China, said Steven Rostovsky, the Los Angeles-based president of Softline North America. "In China, we are looking at a potential market of 1.3 billion (people), and Ben knows that market. I work very closely with Ben. He is very entrepreneurial, very dynamic."
AccountMate, which Softline acquired in December 2000, competes with Microsoft, Intuit and other big firms that sell accounting software. It is regarded in the industry as a smart niche player with adaptable products for small and midsize clients, said Robert Anderson, an industry analyst with Gartner Inc.
"They don't play with the big boys, but they have the ability to grow. The joining together of AccountMate and Softline is a global play. They have a mature, loyal client base and strong customer service."
MULTICULTURAL SUPPORT
As they grew the business, Tse and Lo (now vice-president for development) tried to keep an international orientation and build a multicultural staff. Today, AccountMate employs 40 people in its Novato office, located in an industrial park just off Interstate 101. AccountMate's global marketing and customer services are clustered in Marin, where its staff offers service in Cantonese, Mandarin, Spanish and other languages.
The staff includes a large number of Asian Americans, who, Tse says, are especially adept with the firm's global customers. "They are patient with people, well-mannered with people."
Patience is a quality that Tse, an emphatic, talkative man with restless energy, says he is trying to cultivate in himself. He admits to being aggressive, a quality that is highly valued in individualistic-minded American culture. But he says he is trying to tap his Asian heritage, to round out his personality, and has to remember to slow down, listen and be inclusive -- especially on his business trips to Asia, where such qualities are held in high regard.
"When I go to China, I am a lot more subtle," said Tse, who was born in Guangzhou on the mainland and moved with his mother to Hong Kong. Back in China, he said, he calls on "the strength of my Asian heritage, which is to be humble, respectful, open."
Rostovsky of Softline North America said the parent company plans to extend the AccountMate brand, with plans to launch AccountMate Australia next year and hopes for expansion in China.
Tse shares those hopes for ramped-up business in China, which he says is a challenging and complex place for foreigners.
"While the savings in setting up engineering R&D in China are big, the risks can also be big. Many American companies rushed to China, but only to get disappointed by not understanding the culture, working local traditions and navigating through the complex and unstructured governmental regulations," Tse said.
"My ability to communicate flawlessly in Mandarin Chinese and my personal contacts enabled us to set up the operations with relative ease and optimal efficiency."
Nowadays, when Tse visits China, he harbors no desire to move back. "I am more American than Chinese. America is the greatest country in the world, in spite of all its problems."
Tse is still close with Lichtenstein. When he and his wife became parents of a newborn girl 12 years ago, they named her Marjorie after the Marin woman who walked into a Hong Kong optician's shop looking for new glasses all those years ago.
Ben Tse at-a-glance:
- Age: 47
- Position: Chief executive officer, AccountMate Inc., Novato.
- Work experience: Co-founder, SoftTech Inc., 1984 (predecessor to AccountMate). Co-founder, sightseeing tour operator China Sightseeing Inc., 1980. Accountant, 1979-81. Manual laborer, shop assistant, janitorial work, Hong Kong, 1970s
- Education: Associate arts degree, College of Marin, 1976. Bachelor's degree in accounting, Golden Gate University, 1978. Attended Purdue University, where he studied Industrial Administration, 1978-1979.
- Family: Married to Dawn Tse; the couple has a daughter, Marjorie, age 12.
Source: Ben Tse
