A first hire in China is expensive in attention, not only in salary: they will be alone, far from headquarters, in a market nobody at home fully understands, and their results will be hard to read from Europe for the first year. That is manageable — but only if everyone agrees what the person is for.
Three different first hires
- A commercial developer who opens doors, meets buyers and builds a pipeline. Judge them on meetings and qualified opportunities in year one, not on revenue.
- A supply-chain and quality person who lives near your suppliers, sees problems before they ship and shortens every loop. For a company that buys rather than sells in China, this is usually the higher-return hire.
- A marketing and content person who makes the brand exist in Chinese, on the platforms where it is looked for. This one produces nothing measurable for months and then compounds.
Very few people are all three, and asking one person to be is the most common way a first hire fails. Choose the one that matches what your company is actually doing in China this year.
The structural question underneath
Employing someone in China normally requires a legal entity there, with the registration, payroll, social contributions and tax obligations that follow. Arrangements that appear to avoid this — an employer of record, a Hong Kong contract, a consultant invoicing you — each carry their own constraints and consequences. This is one of the areas where informal solutions are common and where the cost of the informal one appears later.
Keeping the person once you have them
Isolation is the main risk. Someone working alone in a market their colleagues do not understand, with no visible career path and no one to learn from, leaves — often for a competitor who offers the same job with a team around it. Regular contact that is not a reporting call, a visit from headquarters more than once a year, and a decision loop that does not take three weeks are worth more than a salary adjustment.
Employment, social-contribution and tax obligations in China are detailed and change. Confirm the current requirements with a specialist before committing to a structure.