Born in Guangzhou, China, Tian lived there until the age of 10, when her family moved to Vancouver. A few years later, she returned to China to attend an international school before heading back to Canada for college in Toronto. After graduating, she stepped into a management consulting role, believing she was following the path many immigrants aspire to take.
“I thought, ‘I’m going to fulfill the immigrant dream. I’m going to get a great corporate job and all that,’” Tian, now 30, told Business Insider.
Leaving Corporate Life Behind
Over time, the routine of corporate life left her feeling restless. After three years in consulting, she decided to move back to China in 2020 to work for a large technology company in Beijing. What was meant to be a short professional break soon turned into a longer stay.
After a year, Tian was transferred to Shanghai, where she continued working in the tech sector before eventually joining a startup. In 2023, as Shanghai faced extended lockdowns, she and her then boyfriend decided to leave China and pursue graduate studies in the United States, hoping the distance would help them reassess their long term plans.
Following two years at Harvard Business School, Tian said she reached a clear conclusion. The future she wanted no longer included a traditional corporate career.
Instead, she and her now husband decided to pursue a search fund, a business model that focuses on acquiring and running a small company rather than working for an employer.
“I would say a lot of the reason why people want to do it is because they don’t want to work for someone else. They want to be their own boss, and I definitely want to do that as well,” Tian told Business Insider.
Although search funds are more common in North America, Tian felt China offered stronger opportunities. In September, the couple moved back to Shanghai after considering several cities, including Guangzhou.
They rented a three bedroom apartment about 40 minutes from the city center, paying 8,900 yuan per month. Tian said the neighborhood offers everyday conveniences such as shopping centers and wholesale stores, along with a large expatriate community due to nearby international schools.
“Culturally, I understand. I just feel like this is my home, and I don’t feel like I’m doing it in someone else’s home,” she told Business Insider.
Tian also believes building relationships with potential business sellers would be easier in China due to shared cultural understanding.
“I don’t think I can connect as well with, for example, a Midwest person in their 50s or 60s, or all the sports that they’re into,” she said, according to Business Insider.
Search Funds: Opportunity in China
According to a Stanford study published in 2024, investors have poured billions into search funds in the United States and Canada over the past four decades. While the model is still relatively rare in China, Tian believes that presents an opportunity rather than a limitation.
She is particularly interested in sectors such as business services, consumer franchises, and manufacturing. Many business owners in China are now reaching retirement age, and their children may not want to take over family operations.
Beyond business, Tian said her experiences living across countries forced her to reflect deeply on her identity.
Growing up as an immigrant in Canada, she said, often meant prioritizing adaptation over cultural connection. Many immigrant children feel pressure to downplay their background in order to fit in.
“There’s this social behavior where you feel like you need to put down your own identity so that you can adapt to the main culture,” Tian said
When she first returned to China for work, Tian assumed her sense of self was already firmly shaped. Instead, she found herself learning and changing in unexpected ways.
“I realized that if I wanted to do my job well, and relate to my coworkers, I would have to really understand how they think,” she said.
That journey, she added, helped her reconnect with her roots and better understand her parents’ experiences as immigrants.
“I feel like moving to China has really helped me heal my relationship with my parents too, and just see them in a completely different way,” Tian said.