Jason Ai is holed up in his Hefei office while chatting with The CEO Magazine. Explaining he has to remove his mask before our interview begins, the Whirlpool China President and CEO seems delighted by the distraction. After all, it’s been a lonely fortnight in isolation, quarantined against the coronavirus.
Normally, Jason spends the week in Hefei, commuting back to Shanghai by speed train every Friday to spend the weekend with his family. However, his routine was disrupted one Monday morning on his return to Hefei when the city, only about 380 kilometres from the virus epicentre of Wuhan, was announced to be in lockdown. Jason had to be quarantined, choosing to stay in the office where he could at least rely on video conferencing to continue working and a team of “decent” people to get manufacturing back on track after it was halted late last year.
He admits he has no idea when he’ll next get home, conceding that it’s rather a moot point, since it would mean starting the quarantine process all over again on his return to Hefei. But his amicable and very pragmatic attitude towards the crisis is rather typical of this executive who, rather than catastrophising, prefers to recall his favourite piece of advice.
“There are more solutions than problems,” he says.
He also calls on his great sense of humour to make the best out of a bad situation. In fact, he’s surprisingly positive about his predicament as he looks on the bright side, laughing when it’s pointed out to him that at least he has some clean clothes. “I have a combo washing machine and dryer in my office,” he says. “So I’m able to do all my washing.”
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