May Li was born in Dalian, a coastal city in northeast China. Although her heritage is not Chinese, she grew up entirely within Chinese culture. In many ways, she considers herself Chinese.

Her mother made a defining decision early on, insisting she attend a mainstream school rather than the minority school designed for families of her background. She believed a standard Chinese education would open broader opportunities and shape a stronger future.

School life itself was typical, yet May Li was never the model student. The outdoors called to her more than the classroom. She spent her childhood running through cornfields, chasing rabbits along dusty roads, and catching dragonflies in the summer heat. Those formative years were defined less by textbooks and more by motion, freedom, and the boundless energy of open fields.

A City on the Rise

During the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, Dalian stood among China’s most promising coastal cities. As a designated hub for foreign investment and a major port along the eastern maritime route, it was widely expected to rise among the country’s leading development cities. Many believed it was on track to become a northern counterpart to the rapidly emerging Shenzhen, with the potential to join China’s first tier of cities.

Long before the sweeping wave of economic reform, Dalian had already carved out a strong industrial identity. Known for shipbuilding, heavy machinery, and petrochemicals, it had functioned as a planned industrial hub since the mid 20th century. Employment was steady, for both men and women. The government’s emphasis on gender equality, reflected in Mao Zedong’s famous phrase “women hold up half the sky,” ensured women were widely represented across factories and technical roles.

When China opened its doors to global investment, Dalian became a magnet for Japanese and Korean manufacturers. Global names such as Toshiba, Panasonic, and Samsung established large production bases there. The city’s port advantages, skilled workforce, and proximity to Northeast Asia made it a strategic choice.

In recent decades, as traditional manufacturing gradually shifted to surrounding regions, Dalian repositioned itself as a growing hub for ICT and service industries. Software parks, outsourcing centers, and technology firms began to define its skyline, signaling a transition from heavy industry to a more diversified, knowledge driven economy.

The First Glimpse

University took May Li to Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning Province. At the time, Shenyang was still deeply rooted in its heavy industry legacy, shaped by machinery manufacturing, metallurgy, and state owned factories.

Yet the early 1990s marked a quiet revolution. Personal computers began appearing in Chinese universities. For the first time, students like her were introduced to basic programming and simple coding exercises. It felt like peering through a small window into a future just beginning to unfold.

After graduation, she joined one of China’s major telecommunications companies, stepping directly into the country’s rapid digital transformation. Her early work centered on deploying digital switching systems, building the backbone of China’s expanding fixed line network at a time when telephones were becoming essential household items. The work was demanding and deeply technical, yet it carried a sense of purpose. She was helping lay the foundations of nationwide connectivity.

That experience opened an unexpected door. In 1998, she moved to the United Arab Emirates to join the rollout of early 2G mobile networks. The Middle East was accelerating its own digital leap, and being part of that transformation expanded her perspective far beyond China. For the first time, she witnessed the true global scale of the telecom industry, and saw how technology could reshape entire societies.

A Path That Chose Her

Looking back, May Li reflects that she never consciously chose the tech industry. In many ways, she was carried into it by circumstance. With a university major in telecommunications, joining a technology company felt natural, almost inevitable. At the time, it did not seem like a deliberate career decision, simply the path ahead.

Only years later did she recognize the weight of that choice, and how profoundly it shaped both her professional direction and her worldview.

Lessons from a Relentless Industry

She often notes the irony that she never actively chose tech, yet it became the arena that demanded the most from her. With the boldness of youth, she stepped in without fully grasping the challenges ahead.

Today, she understands how demanding the field truly is. Surviving in technology requires relentless continuous learning. The pace of change accelerates every year. Knowledge that feels current one month can seem outdated the next. Curiosity is essential, yet sustaining it over decades is far from easy.

As she reflects on her journey, she credits her parents as the foundation beneath her resilience. Their belief in education, their insistence on perseverance, and their quiet confidence in her abilities became her anchor. In an industry defined by constant motion, that grounding made the difference.

With hindsight, she believes building a strong foundation is key to long term growth. Technologies evolve, trends shift, tools come and go. A solid grounding, paired with the values instilled by her parents, remains constant.

Helping Businesses Go Digital

Today, May Li serves as Solution Marketing VP at Huawei Middle East and Central Asia. Over the years, she has established herself as a trusted technology strategy advisor, helping clients navigate their ICT and intelligent transformation journeys.

Her role sits at the intersection of innovation and execution, translating complex technologies into strategies that drive measurable change.

The Courage to Continue

She leaves readers with a quote from Winston Churchill, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts.”

For May Li, this is more than a line from history. It is a lived philosophy. Persistence, not perfection, is what ultimately shapes a person’s path.

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