Yet returning to China was not that easy for Yuan. He had to give up what he had worked so hard to get in the United States. He had two children; one was in middle school, and the other was still in elementary school. Growing up in the United States, the children were used to the Western lifestyle and educational system.

A new start

Nevertheless, Yuan showed up to work at his Beijing office on October 6, 2008. He signed a three-year contract with his employer and was eager to make a strong start.

Competition in the industry was fierce, so he often worked late. Sometimes he prepared reports and presentations almost around the clock, he said. "I leave home at 7 a.m. and I go back home at midnight on the last subway train almost every day. I am in the office all day long, except for the times when I go out with clients," Yuan said.

Initially, he felt unfamiliar with the business environment even though he had intermittently come back to China over the years. He sometimes felt at loss as to where to start.

The first client he targeted was a large Chinese commercial bank that was often courted by a number of well-known top accounting firms and consulting companies from around the world. Until that point, Deloitte had been unsuccessful at landing business from that bank.

But Yuan was diligent and, he said, lucky. In February 2009, the bank went with Deloitte on risk management projects. "This is a turning point in my team's lives, so I will remember this day," said Yuan.

Opportunity in the crisis

In the midst of the global financial downturn, some overseas Chinese professionals have returned or are thinking of returning to China to seek opportunities. China would like to attract talented people from abroad, and the country has launched plans in this regard. Authorities hope to attract about 1,000 talented people now living overseas in the next five to 10 years.

With knowledge and experience in international finance, Yuan is the kind of person China would like to have to deal with the financial crisis.

Yuan, who had been thinking about returning to China long ago, said he did not return because of the crisis, yet the downturn has brought him more opportunities. In his opinion, the financial crisis stemmed from improper risk management, overvaluation of assets and, most importantly, from structured financial derivatives that essentially were based on so many bad, subprime loans. To better cope with it, he said, risk management and asset pricing must be strengthened, and he just happens to have that type of expertise.

His team is talking to several large state-owned commercial banks, and they hope to work with these institutions to help them both manage their risks and improve their valuation skills. Yuan has some specific remedies ready for them. He thinks large Chinese commercial banks should produce a risk report every day, for instance. If the report cannot be done at the end of each business day, it should be ready by 9:30 a.m. the next morning. This is a true benchmark of the financial industry in practice, he said. If such countermeasures were not taken, the risks would accumulate and "eventually evolve into a financial tsunami like the one we see today." Once all Chinese banks are capable of running a daily risk report before 9:30 a.m., this should be a true milestone for the industry in China.

Yuan now works with his colleagues to push such a change and hopes it happens in the near future with support from a government agency like the China Banking Regulatory Commission and those in the financial industries.

Now it has been months since Yuan returned to Beijing. He now knows he has made the right decision. "Beijing has such a large business platform, though there are still a number of expected and unexpected challenges ahead of me," he said.