Making your mark as a management consultant requires a range of talents, among them a sharp intellect, high level of interpersonal skills, and a quick grasp of the key drivers in diverse organisations and industries.

Also essential, though, is the ability to react to changing circumstances and take unexpected challenges in your stride. And that is exactly the quality Weiwen Han displayed when confronted with an unforeseen turn of events after gaining admission to study management information systems at the prestigious Fudan University in Shanghai.

“It was the early nineties and incoming students were told they first had to do a year’s training at a military school in Nanchang,” says the recently appointed managing director of Bain & Company’s Greater China practice. “It was a boot camp where we learned to shoot, raised pigs, studied military and political thinking, and did a lot of marching. That year was certainly a very different experience. But it trained me up physically, added a huge amount to my personality – and my swearing definitely picked up.”

Not surprisingly, though, the hiatus and resulting disruption made returning to academic life quite tough. Han admits to feeling “very lost” for a while, finding it hard to settle into the campus routine. But he then but set his sights on two goals: to excel academically and, in due course, to pursue an advanced degree. Both were realistic objectives, but also “not an option”, considering his family background and the attendant expectations.

Han grew up in Fushun, a city of around 2 million in Liaoning province, and remembers it as cold, tough and economically backward when compared with fast-moving centres like Shanghai. His father was a university professor while his mother taught middle school, so it was “in the genes” to focus on academic success and choose a path that valued such attributes.

“Back in 1996, the China careers market opened up,” he says. “I was in the group who wanted to go abroad, and while there wasn’t a ton of opportunities, I found a handbook profiling several hundred companies and decided to try for the professional services sector.”

What attracted him was the chance of working in a fast-paced environment, with exposure to international clients and broader prospects for personal development. The real clincher, though, was that the forerunner of today’s Accenture was hiring specialists in management information systems – and the pay wasn’t too bad.

Han joined, focusing on implementing enterprise software platforms for large companies, which was becoming a skill much in demand around the world. Within a year, he was transferred to Houston, Texas to work with major oil companies using the system, and had to adjust as necessary.

“In Texas, there were not many Chinese, so I would hang out with the Americans, even though there were cultural barriers which made it difficult to understand everything. As a 23-year-old ‘boy’ in the Mid-West, I may not have been the best at client management, but the people there respect expertise. I could do the job well, and that helped me gain credibility.”

Two years on, he returned to China, now uniquely placed to advise multinationals expanding in the mainland, and took steps to start an MBA at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business in 2000. From there, he went to Bain in Beijing, mainly handling private equity clients, before opening the Shanghai office in 2004. This saw him branch out with work for multinational clients and local entrepreneurs in the consumer and retail sectors.

“My career has always been about trying to bridge East and West,” Han says. “That involves understanding a client’s ‘big picture’, drawing a practical road map of the route to success, and mobilising the right resources to support the journey.”

Currently, his major objectives include achieving “growth with quality” which involves finding more high-calibre recruits for Greater China and developing them into “stars” to serve priority clients. In tackling such objectives, Han finds himself learning all the time.

“I’m very goal-oriented, very persistent,” he says. “I try to focus on the most important things and nothing else. I also tend to be very direct with clients and the team. It has worked so far, but I may need to tweak that approach a bit in my new role, which is more about ‘leading from behind’ by listening, achieving alignment and consensus, and making others shine.”

To this end, Han can turn to in-house mentors and will work with a behavioural psychologist who has coached a number of Bain executives over the years, assisting their transition to more senior positions. It is often a matter of increasing self-awareness, learning not to talk too much, asking questions rather than giving answers, and speaking last in a meeting rather than first.

“My predecessor and the senior partner in our San Francisco office have been giving me tips and tricks on how to do well for a number of years, ever since I started building client relationships,” Han says. “It has been great to have that kind of support.”

With two young sons, family commitments obviously take priority outside work hours. But Han has also taken on pro bono commitments advising local and international charities such as the One Foundation and the Society of Ecology and Entrepreneurship.

“That is where the ‘extra’ five per cent of my time goes,” Han says. “Overall, I believe every individual needs to find the right balance between four things: professional, personal, family and social life. I always try to make sure these are separate but well balanced.”