Cover story ASIA’S RICHEST BUSINESSWOMEN The pace of economic change in Asia has been set in large part by the Chinese businesswomen who dominate in this year’s Asia Rich List. WORDS • HARNOOR CHANNI-TIWARY ZHANG XIN Net worth US$3.1 billion SOHO China If you visited Beijing or Shanghai a decade ago second-generation Burmese Chinese parents who worked as and went back now, there is a good chance translators at the Foreign Language Press. Unfortunately, this was you wouldn’t recognise the city; such is the also the same time that the cultural revolution was gaining steam and transformation that has occurred. And in many her family was shipped off to the countryside for Mao Tse-tung’s ways, a large part of this steep economic change ‘re-education’ program. This period was tough on her family and can be attributed to women, who now are not eventually her parents separated, with Zhang Xin remaining in her only making waves but are also finding mother’s care. unprecedented success in business circles. It is They both moved to Hong Kong when she was 14 in an attempt therefore no surprise that the Hurun Report of to pick up the pieces of their now-strewn life and livelihood. Her the richest self-made businesswomen in Asia mother got another job as a translator, which could only afford (March 2017) is dominated by the Chinese. them a room housing two tiny beds, and a bathroom shared with In fact, not a single name in the top 15 in this a dozen families. Even at that age, Zhang Xin realised that the one list belongs to non-Chinese origin women. thing that had the power to change her life was education. In an And that in itself says a lot. article she wrote for The New York Times in 2014, she recounts, The predominantly grey skyline of Beijing is “I spent my teenage years working long hours as a factory girl, rebelliously livened up by the stark white Galaxy sewing collars and buttons onto dress shirts in Hong Kong.” Bit SOHO, a commercial building that breaks all by bit, she managed to save enough in five years to afford a ticket INSPIRING THE BUSINESS WORLD myths and preconceived traditional notions of to London and this courageous young woman packed her bags INSPIRING THE BUSINESS WORLD GLOBAL FINANCIAL how a building should be designed. It is futuristic, and set off into the unknown. CRISIS A decade older, but are INSPIRINGINSPIRING THE BUSINESS THE WORLD BUSINESS WORLD we any wiser? ZHANG XIN China�s bold and elegant, much like the remarkable lady London was as alien as could be and she soon realised that DIVERSIFY architect YOUR ASSETS of change Profiting from the hottest new investments USING DATA FOR PREDICTIVE whose brainchild it is, Zhang Xin. An incredulous poverty had followed her there. Not one to be deterred, Zhang AUDITING THE SIMPLE WAYS TO PROTECT YOUR DIGITAL PRIVACY As featured in Asia’s life story that would make for a bestselling book Xin took up a day job at a fish and chips stand and at night took Richest The CEO Magazine BUSINESSWOMEN or blockbuster movie, this tale gives you reason to English-speaking classes, the one tool that she knew was essential FROM CHEN LIHUA TO ZHOU QUNFEI, A GUIDE TO ASIA’S MOST SUCCESSFUL FEMALES For more info visit ISSN 24249831 theceomagazine.com dream. Zhang Xin was born to well-educated to go further. After securing a scholarship in 1991, she went on » 8 | theceomagazine.com theceomagazine.com | 9 Cover story CHEN LIHUA Net worth US$6 billion to gain an Economics Degree at the University of mind. Even though she has an enormous 10 million followers on Weibo, Fuwah International Group Sussex. Confidence now gave wind to her wings and she is refreshingly honest and ‘real’ in her posts, like the one where she In sharp contrast stands 76-year-old she went on to do her master’s in Development makes fun of her own self for falling while skiing, or the photo she’s Chen Lihua, the second richest Economics at Cambridge University. A stint in the uploaded from a party where Batman came to visit, or even the post self-made businesswoman in Asia London-based Investment bank Barings, and later on International Women’s Day where she pays tribute to women she and one of the most powerful Goldman Sachs on famed Wall Street, brought Zhang respects highly, including Anne Frank and Mother Teresa. It is rare for women in the world. There are many Xin into the big league. such a high-profile businessperson to be so honest and open on a social versions to the story of her early life, Wall Street did not sit well with her sensibilities platform in China. But rare, she is. And what could be more honest some having us believe that she was and she made her way back than the time when she told Lesley Stahl from born in Beijing’s Summer Palace to to China where she met her 60 Minutes (CBS News): “The Chinese people descendants of the Noble Manchu husband Pan Shiyi. The feel a great longing for democracy … I predict family. However, this was three spark was instant and they ZHANG XIN DECIDED TO EMBRACE that democracy will come to China in less decades after the Manchu Qing were engaged four days after HER HUSBAND PAN SHIYI’S DREAM than 20 years.” A statement controversial in Dynasty collapsed and her they met. But it was itself, told to an American publication, even childhood was reportedly spent in something deeper that TO CREATE CHINA’S MANHATTAN more so. abject poverty. In his book Out of brought them together, for IN THE HEART OF BEIJING. On the board of Teach for China, and the Mao’s Shadow: The Struggle for the when Pan Shiyi took her to founder of the SOHO Foundation, Zhang Xin Soul of a New China, Philip Pan states that Chen the heart of Beijing and told wants to gift the youth of China what she Lihua’s steep climb is marked with controversy, her that he wanted to make craved for when she was their age – high-quality suggesting that it was her ties with party members in China’s Manhattan there, she decided to share his education that has the power to transform their lives. In her interview the transitional phase of China that propelled her dream. Thus, was born a partnership that created for Spiegel Online, she added, “I had a scholarship. So, if I donate into the big league. These connections ensured she SOHO China, a real estate firm that breaks all barriers, money to give brilliant Chinese students an opportunity to study received licences, subsidies and enjoyed a certain and pushes the limits of the conventional. The abroad, then this embodies everything I believe in: education, ease of business, remaining above the law while company’s business model has changed over the years globalisation, social mobility.” many people she transacted with faced corruption from manufacturers to landowners, she told Bernhard Out of her familial ruins during the cultural revolution, Zhang Xin went charges. She married twice, her second husband Zand of Spiegel Online. Speaking of how times have on to create strong personal and professional foundations built on hard a famous actor 10 years her junior, and now changed, she added, “Twenty years ago, we were only work, education, talent and tenacity. She is not only an architect of change lives with her three children in the Chinese Red able to build boxes. Today, architects from all over the in China, but also across the global construction landscape. Sandalwood Museum that she built, which LUO QIANQIAN world are working with us – Zaha Hadid from London, (as the story goes) reminds her of her Net worth US$3.5 billion Gerkan, Marg and Partner from Hamburg, Kengo Kuma ZHOU QUNFEI Summer Palace childhood. Shanda Group from Japan. We brought design and digitalisation from Net worth US$7.4 billion Notoriously media-shy Luo Qianqian created the interactive gaming abroad to China.” She told Wall Street Journal that Lens Technology CHEN SHUHONG brand Shanda with her husband in 1999, and they floated the company she feels very “fortunate to have been able to build The Hurun Report’s Rich List offers an insight into how an entire Net worth US$4.1 billion on the Nasdaq in 2004. An intelligent businesswoman with a degree from so much as a real estate developer, as China goes generation of Chinese women have pushed boundaries and built Red Star Macalline Group the Financial and Banking Institute of China, Luo Qianqian is known through urbanisation with cities being built in a very businesses that the world increasingly depends on. Take for example, Lens Though Chen Shuhong is named in Hurun’s elite list, among her staff for creating a relaxed and informal atmosphere at work. condensed period of time”. Technology, a firm that manufactures touchscreens for smartphones. This it is her husband Che Jianxin who is the founder of But what sets Zhang Xin, now a mother of two, is only one of the 11 companies that Zhou Qunfei has founded. But this Red Star Macalline Group. Called the ‘Home MELISSA MA (MA DONGMIN) apart is not merely her (considerable) business acumen 47-year-old tycoon, who sits at number one on the rich list, wasn’t born Improvement King’ of China, his (and his wife’s) fortune Net worth US$2.9 billion and success (which with a net worth of US$3.1 billion, with a silver spoon in her mouth.