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[Editor's Note]
Quite a few Valueland clients have known me as a mortgage broker through face-to-face meetings, telephone conversations or e-mails, but not as a person with a unique background. In conversations, some of you asked about my career experience. I believe this is a fair question. As a result, I am now planning to write a series of short articles to explain where we were, where we are and where we are going, so that you can have complete confidence in what we deliver to you as our valued clients. - Martin Yuanpu Shao |
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Here comes the first one: All about Martin Shao
In July 1996, after years in academic research and higher education, I landed at Pearson International Airport in Toronto from Hong Kong and began a new page of my life. I left an academic career at the City University of Hong Kong behind me, where I taught business information technology and strategies to undergraduate and MBA students.
Prior to teaching in Hong Kong, I did research study at the Strathclyde Business School, University of Strathclyde, Scotland, UK. I conducted an extensive research on the use of expert systems in the British banking industry in early 1990s and closely followed the development of Directline insurance company by the Royal Bank of Scotland.
These researches resulted in a lot of thinking about business organizations and a number of academic articles published in leading information management journals and many presentations at international conferences. A few related articles are listed below for your information:
- The Adoption of Virtual Banking
- Expert Systems Diffusion in the British Banking Sector
- Virtual Orgainsations: A Model
After many years of research, observation and strategic thinking, I developed a model of virtual organizations for creating successful non-traditional entities to deploy the flexibility of technology and management frameworks available. This paper was published by the Journal of Information Science in 1998 and is closely related to what I created at Valueland.
Over the years, I find that creating something that I truly believe in is a great experience. Virtual organizations transform the ways that businesses are transacted. In so thinking, I started to build this virtual mortgage brokerage called Valueland Mortgages in 2002 based on the principles and my model of virtual organizations. Valueland is still at an early stage working to become a significant player in the mortgage industry.
I have had many professional careers in Canada. I was a business analyst for information systems, a functional designer for banking systems, an IT consultant, an information system lecturer at Ryerson University and Seneca College, and a PMP project manager (IT).
Today, I am a mortgage broker advising clients on their mortgage options. I have written numerous mortgage articles and some of them were published by the Star Media Group’s weekly Real Estate News. My days are now filled with direct contacts with clients, working on various mortgage cases and putting our strategic plans into work.
Martin Shao holds a Bachelor of Science in Physics, a Master of Science in Information Science and Master of Philosophy in Information Management.
Next one: What's in the name of Valueland?
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