California Tech University (Caltech), where Kevin Xu has endowed the new Neurotechnology Center, due to open next year

As a business leader, scientist, activist, media owner and philanthropist, Kevin Xu is the embodiment of a Renaissance entrepreneur. Andrew Saunders delves into the businessman’s master plan

Kevin Xu

He may not quite be a household name – at least, not yet – but the chair of the MEBO group of regenerative wound care businesses, Kevin Xu, is a force to be reckoned with in the many spheres of his interest all the same. International entrepreneur and mentor; scientist, academic and researcher; advocate for better commercial relations and greater mutual understanding between the US and China; media owner; committed global philanthropist recognised with an Empact 100 award from the UN.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

As if that wasn’t enough, Xu also manages to fit in being a contributor to leading business titles including Forbes, Wired, Inc and Business Insider. No wonder he says wistfully that he doesn’t get much time to keep up with the fortunes of his favourite basketball team, the Dallas Mavericks, these days.

It’s an eclectic and impressive line-up of interests for a man whose ‘day job’ is running one of China’s leading biomedical therapeutics businesses, burns treatment specialist MEBO International. But the thread that unites his diverse activities is his personal credo: if you help someone, they will help others in their turn. “I believe in reciprocity and leadership,” he tells me. “I believe that if I can help an individual to lead a different life, then that person may reciprocate back to society when they become a success themselves. That’s why my interests are wide-ranging and don’t have any restrictions – not ethnicity, region, social status or gender bias. It’s all about individuals who I can help and make a difference.”

To aid him in that quest he also possesses two other valuable assets: a packed international diary and a 24-carat contacts list. He was born and raised in California, but we meet in London – he came for Royal Ascot, but also for meetings with charities and NGOs he’s interested in – before he headed to Japan for that country’s first-ever G20 summit. He’s on the advisory board of the California-China Trade Office, serves on the Asian Advisory Board at the University of Southern California’s Davis School of Gerontology, mentors young entrepreneurs at MIT, is the founder of the Kevin Xu Initiative at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago and has endowed a new Neurotechnology Center in California Institute of Technology. The list goes on.

Perhaps the relationships he is most proud of, however, are his ties to two former US presidents, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. He’s a member of the Clinton Global Initiative and a contributor to the Obama Foundation, and recently spent a fortnight with Clinton in the US Virgin Islands, working with the 42nd president of the United States in connection with its efforts to help rebuild the region after the devastating 2017 hurricanes.

Kevin Xu (pictured with Bill and Hillary Clinton here), is a member of the Clinton Global Initiative.

His view is that great world leaders all share a concern for humanity – and human life – above all. “True leadership involves a value system that puts people’s lives first. Clinton and Obama have that humanitarian aspect and so have other world leaders I have met – people like Pope Francis and [former UN secretary general] Ban Ki-Moon.”

Xu’s connection with the two former presidents was forged in the aftermath of the traumatic death of his father, MEBO founder Dr Rongxiang Xu, in 2015. “It was an accident – an awful shock,” he says. “It was a moment when I realised the power of mentorship. Presidents Obama and Clinton stepped up and carried me through that time – they sent condolence letters and said they would be role models to teach me how to carry on good leadership.”

At the age of 27, Xu not only had to cope with the loss of his father, but also with being parachuted into the pilot seat of the business that Dr Xu had built and run for 30 years. “My biggest fears when my father passed away were firstly that I didn’t know how to run his business in China, and secondly that I didn’t know how to create connections with people there. I grew up in the US, I didn’t know anything about China.”

Read more: Louis Roederer’s CEO Frédéric Rouzaud on art and hospitality

The business was well established in China, where Dr Xu first developed his pioneering moist environment burns therapy (MEBT) in the 1980s. Based on traditional Chinese medicine, the therapy capitalises on the human body’s innate ability to regenerate its own tissues, in a carefully controlled environment. Even deep-tissue, third-degree burns can be successfully treated without the need for painful or disfiguring skin grafts, says Xu. “My father decided to become a burns surgeon because he realised that burns are the most painful conditions people ever face – both pain from the burn and pain from the treatment.”

By the time Xu took over, the business had trained almost a million doctors in the use of its therapy, and had a network of 65,000 hospitals in China alone. Picking up the reins was quite a responsibility.

Xu works with former US president Barack Obama

When President Obama invited Xu to stay with him and be part of the official delegation for the US state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2015, doors were opened that might otherwise have remained closed to him for years. “Obama helped me to make a whole new group of connections between the US and China that are different from those of my father’s era. I met President Xi almost every day.”

That meeting led to MEBO being selected as one of the Chinese government’s official partners on the UN’s Every Woman Every Child initiative, providing medical experts to help deliver the global programme for women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health in many countries. As Xu explains, there were ten such official Chinese partners, and nine of them were already chosen by the time he and President Xi met. “I believe in serendipity, and that happened serendipitously. President Xi decided to have MEBO as number ten.”

His network of A-grade connections is also helping to bring the MEBO burns treatment to the US, via California-based company Skingenix, of which he is also CEO. The road to approval is not an easy one; when the process began in the early 2000s, the FDA regulator didn’t even have a category for treatments based on Chinese medicine. Thanks to the new regulations implemented under the administration of another former president, George Bush Jr, it does now – the category of ‘botanic drugs’ – and the approval process is ongoing.

Read more: Travelling beyond the beaten track with Geoffrey Kent

What have his experiences taught him about fostering better understanding between China and the US? “It’s like the psychology of dating – the US way of dating and the Chinese way of dating show exactly how they each do business,” he suggests. “If a Chinese person takes you seriously and wants to marry you, they will take things slowly, because they want to get to know you. If a US person wants to marry you, you are more likely to get into a fight early in the romance – they are more willing to say something that might hurt you, because they care about you.”

They are two ways of achieving the same goal he says, the main difference in both love and business being that the Chinese approach involves taking a long view. “Eastern people think further ahead, but they don’t always state their full intention at the start. They use connotations to imply it, and that can cause misunderstandings with western people.”

Xu leads a mentoring meeting at the University of California, Berkeley

Another leadership challenge Xu has faced is the fact that many of the experienced executives who help him run MEBO are from his father’s era, and are considerably older than their current boss. “My key advice to young entrepreneurs running a company with older people is not to take your youth as an advantage, but a disadvantage. Be humble and learn what they are thinking. Treat them like your parents, people with more experience than you.”

And what of his co-ownership of Californian media outlet LA Weekly, which he acquired in 2017 alongside several other local investors? Where does this fit into the plan? “I bought it because I understand the importance of media. I love the city where I grew up, but there is too much focus on entertainment, movies and gossip. There is also a more humanitarian side to the city, it just needs bringing out. If I want to change the way people think, I must change the media. Since I bought it, it has become more focused on philanthropy and the arts – a channel for distributing positive energies to people.”

So once again, it may look random from the outside but it’s all part of his plan. What’s the ultimate aim? “I have two goals. My goal for MEBO is that the technology should be available in every country, so that when the world needs us, we will be there. My personal vision is that I want to create a new balance between peace, stability and the self. I want to use science and a new way of thinking to regenerate the world, just as MEBO regenerates the body.”

You heard it here first.

Management by horoscope

East also meets West in one of Xu’s more unusual leadership techniques – using astrology to recruit the right people. “I like horoscopes because I studied neuroscience, and my favourite part of history is Greek mythology. In the company, I know the horoscope signs for most of my people and I place them according to their strengths. Scorpios are more meticulous, for example, so they are suited to finance work, whereas Leos and Aries are more outspoken – it is easier for them to develop new markets.” What does his own star sign indicate? “I am Libra – that’s why I like balance,” he says.

Find out more about the MEBO group: mebo.com

Kate Upton at the 2017 amfAR Gala Cannes

Charity art auctions are taking off around the world, and for the best and worst of reasons, says Simon de Pury, himself the world’s leading philanthropic auctioneer

Simon de Pury

In times past, the main philanthropic efforts in the art world used to be confined to the US, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there is fiscal encouragement for individuals to make charitable donations in the US, which is not the case in Europe. And more importantly it is an integral part of the entrepreneurial educational philosophy in the US, that if you are successful, you give back.

Any successful person in any area in the US is expected to have one or two causes to which they contribute some of the fortune they have made. But over the past 10 years, things have changed. More and more wealth has been created around the world, and the art market has consequently become more global. This means I have witnessed efforts in philanthropy around the world increasing dramatically.

Follow LUX on Instagram: the.official.lux.magazine

It is very gratifying to see, and in many cases to be involved with, cultural institutions that organise regular fundraising events. We also see increasing numbers of organisations of friends of museums, whose main task is to raise funds for philanthropic and charitable causes. In some cases, these are to benefit the institutions themselves; and in others, funds are raised for important causes that are not adequately funded through governments.

Perhaps the ultimate art philanthropist is Maja Hoffmann, who has devoted so much energy to the new LUMA Foundation in Arles; designed by Frank Gehry, it is going to become a cultural art centre of major importance. She also funded the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles; and she is a donor to MoMA and the New Museum in New York, and the Kunsthalle in Zurich. She supports these institutions not just in financial terms, but also by putting together sophisticated programs. She is a shining example.

The amfAR 2017 Gala in Cannes

Then there is the growing area of non-cultural philanthropy, one in which the art world is becoming increasingly involved. It’s not a recent development (although it has been growing exponentially recently) . The art world was the first to mobilise in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, when Thomas Ammann, an art-dealer friend of Elizabeth Taylor and Audrey Hepburn, set up amfAR, which has raised great amounts of money over the years.

What is striking about the art world is that some artists have themselves made significant donations. Damien Hirst donated a beautiful golden mammoth which Len Blavatnik bought for $16m at the amfAR auction in Cannes in 2014. It’s now at the Faena hotel on Miami Beach and something of an Instagram magnet. It also happens to be one of best works in the Damien Hirst oeuvre. Hirst is the most generous artist I know; he has donated many millions of dollars’ worth of art to various charities over the years. Tracey Emin is also immensely generous, as is Chuck Close, who never holds back in supporting causes close to his heart. There are many others, too; artists these days are solicited on a daily basis to donate works to various causes.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Madonna at the 4th Annual Saint-Tropez Gala organised by the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation in 2017

There is one lingering anomaly, at a time when we should all be highly concerned about the future of the planet: the fact that only three per cent of global charitable donations go to environmental causes. Leonardo DiCaprio is leading the way in devoting time and energy to raising awareness of the poor state of the oceans and other environmental issues, and I have had the honour of being auctioneer at the four large charity auctions he has organised in St-Tropez over the past four years.

Read more: One-of-a-kind designs by talented artisans at Baku Corner

David Beckham arriving at the 2017 amfAR Gala

What is significant about these auctions is that they include works by artists such as Jeff Koons, Urs Fischer and George Condo, many of whom donate very substantial works. In 2016, of the 20-odd works on sale during the live auction, 15 were donated and 12 of them set new auction records. This shows that people are not simply buying art at these auctions as a charitable act – they are buying top works, which makes it sustainable and gives it extra purpose. Leonardo manages, through his status, not only to obtain top donations, but also to bring in potential purchasers from all over the world. In that tent in St-Tropez on the gala evening, there is a greater concentration of money than at the big auctions in New York.

What is increasingly extraordinary about these events is how global the audience is now. High net-worth individuals are coming from all over the world, with more and more attending from Russia, the former eastern bloc, the Middle East, China, Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Latin America and all over Africa. It has really become a global effort.

All of this also raises awareness, and once awareness spreads it becomes easier to raise funds. Offices that look after HNIs all now have specialists in philanthropy to advise their clients how they can help. People are getting drawn in for different reasons. Some people pay for the artworks because they just want the artwork. But increasingly individuals want to take responsibility because governments are not. One of the reasons philanthropy was initially more widespread in the US is that most institutions there depend on private donations, there being no public funding. In Europe, public budgets used to be much bigger, but with cuts, individuals have had to step in.

You can also see this with the instant mobilisation that takes place when something happens, for example the recent refugee crisis. Some artists are galvanized into action by such crises – Ai Weiwei has made a movie and marched on the streets of London together with Anish Kapoor. It’s the future.

Simon de Pury is an art auctioneer and collector and the founder of de Pury de Pury. Read more of his columns for LUX here.