About the Book: A snobbish French executive arrives in Shanghai with his expensive shoes and ties, expecting a short career-boosting posting before returning to Paris. Instead, he ends up deep in China’s manure-soaked fields, buying and selling vegetables, all because he has convinced himself that he can single-handedly drag Chinese agriculture into the 21st Century. It didn’t work out as he planned. The Lettuce Diaries is a revealing and humorous memoir of entrepreneurship, doubling as a primer for all seeking to do business in China, and explaining things the French executive, Xavier Naville, learned the hard way — like humility and listening to people.
About the Author: Xavier was born in France and in 1997 moved to China where he built Creative Food,which is today a key supplier to major restaurant chains across the country. He continued to run the business until 2011. Xavier is now a principal at Vision Management Consultants and works on strategy in the food sector for multinationals in China. He is also a Strategy & Execution coach for CEOs and their leadership teams. He currently lives in Oakland, California, and divides his time between there and China.
Reviews: “In this astonishing, soulful, moving, and often funny memoir-cum-business-primer, Xavier Naville tells the story of how he traded the boardrooms of Paris for the fields of China, and built one of the country’s largest fresh-food companies. The Lettuce Diaries is a story of where China has been, where it’s going, and why it matters to all of us.” Leslie T. Chang, author of Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China.
Details: The Lettuce Diaries is published in eBook and paperback by Earnshaw Books (Hong Kong), priced in local currencies.
