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Facebook, IBM, court future Chinese elite

Zuckerberg and Rometty join advisory board of top business school

Beijing's Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management has signed up two tech titans to its advisory board: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and IBM President and CEO Ginni Rometty.

Tsinghua University is among China's most prestigious, is ranked the world's 47th-best tertiary education institution and its School of Economics and Management is widely considered a finishing school for those on a path to become the nation's elite.

The School makes annual appointments of global business leaders to one year terms on its advisory board: Zuckerberg and Rometty will succeed the CEOs of Citigroup, Ford Motor Company and Wal-Mart Stores.

It doesn't look like Zuckerberg and Rometty will have to take much time out from their respective chores of milking dupes and keeping IBM at a safe distance from the cloud event horizon, as “The Advisory Board provides advice to help develop Tsinghua SEM into a world-class institution of higher education, promotes faculty development, supports the establishment of research centers, and contributes to the scholarships for students.”

Cheques, we assume, will be written. As we've reported, Zuck's first act in his new role was to conduct a Q&A session at the University. His decision to do so in Mandarin throughout brought audible gasps of delight from the students in attendance.

Zuck describes the University as “an amazing center of learning and research, and it has been inspiring to be with so many talented future Chinese leaders.”

It's not hard to see why Zuckerberg and Rometty are keen to give the University a hand: Facebook's not available behind The Great Firewall and China recently suggested its businesses might be better off without possibly-NSA-tainted IBM servers. Getting in on the ground floor with students on China's fast track to looks a handy way to start addressing their respective problems. ®

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