Biotech Leadership: How Jean Liu Mastered The Shift From GC To Board Roles
About Jean Liu
Jean Liu, president of Didi Chuxing, has spoken about her transition from general counsel to board roles in the biotechnology sector, describing how she secured board seats while still serving as a chief legal officer. She noted that she focuses on asking open-ended questions about business direction rather than acting strictly as a lawyer. Liu also reflected on her early law school experience, calling herself a "mediocre student" who had to learn how to write analytical answers with no single right answer. She described the biotech industry as being on "the knife edge of wild success and wild failure," and said that being a biotech GC taught her how to handle bad news by triaging priorities. Liu has also discussed her decision to leave Goldman Sachs as a managing director to join Didi in 2014 as chief operating officer, when the company was valued at around $500 million and had 700 employees. She said she had tried three times to invest in Didi on behalf of Goldman but failed due to the firm's strict due diligence process. Liu stated that after two fatal safety incidents on Didi's platform in 2018, the company launched more than 40 safety features including facial recognition and route sharing, and created an online forum to solicit public feedback on sensitive topics such as whether drivers should be allowed to reject drunk passengers. She noted that during the COVID-19 pandemic, Didi lost 80% of its business in two months but that the business later returned to its peak.