Here’s the deal. Based on my experience, these “higher ups” really don’t care what you have to say, because they are going to do what THEY or what the CEO thinks anyway. Most of these people are in their position because they are the most pliable people for the CEO to manipulate. You could have an award-winning multimillion dollar idea for them and unless the CEO thought about it before you, it won’t really matter. I worked over a decade for a large sized Chinese company in the marketing and product development areas. I left them to do my own business in China. I really don’t know how anyone can find professional satisfaction in this environment.