Ten women to watch in Asia A single, global list of Women to Watch doesn’t always do justice to the growing influence of Asia’s women business leaders. In addition to the global list that appears in this report, we have compiled a list of Asia-based women, focusing on those who are having an impact in business now or who will be influ- ential in the years ahead. And while Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi is not your typical “business leader,” she’s having an enormous impact on the entertain- ment industry. Here, then, are 10 women to watch in Asia, in alphabetical order.

SOLINA CHAU “People used to buy homes only after they KIRAN MAZUMDAR SHAW enterprise, she chairs both China’s largest retired,” and had at last saved up enough steelmaker, Baosteel Group of Shanghai, money, she says. “Today, 25-to-35-year-olds and the China Iron & Steel Association, a with jobs are all going to be home buyers.” powerful industry body. Ms. Karnad’s work clothes have always AGE 53 Under her watch, Chinese steelmakers AGE 40s been the traditional Indian sari. She says TITLE Chairman and have been bulking up and getting more TITLE Director it’s been important not to intimidate clients, managing director international. China for the first time this ORGANIZATION Li Ka especially when HDFC was just starting, and ORGANIZATION Biocon year led steelmakers’ global negotiations Shing Foundation the loan process required a long interview in Ltd. on prices for iron ore, their key raw material. LOCATION Hong Kong the potential borrowers’ homes. LOCATION India Their tactics were criticized, however, and n Bill Gates and Warren Buffett aren’t “With no credit scoring at all, assessing n Back in 1978, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, steelmakers ended up agreeing to a hefty the only ones with a yen for giving. The Li the person and his family was very a qualified Master Brewer, was trying to 19% price increase. Ka Shing Foundation, brainchild of Asia’s important for a loan,” she says. “We’d find a job in India’s male-dominated beer China’s government has said it will richest man, Li Ka-shing, has to date given always go to the women of the house,” for industry, but couldn’t get hired. Instead, that coordinate better in the future, and Ms. Xie close to $1 billion to fund everything from family background and if there were ever same year, she gave up brewing and took up is building international ties by taking a new avian-flu research to Buddhism studies. payment problems, she adds. biotechnology. post at a world-wide industry body. The person behind much of that activity: Despite intense new competition from Using her knowledge of fermentation, Foundation director Solina Chau, a former many banks that used to ignore the mortgage she set up Biocon Ltd. and started —Andrew Batson top executive in Mr. Li’s business empire. market only 10 years ago, HDFC’s loan manufacturing low-cost enzymes for the She entered the limelight in the early 1990s portfolio has surged. It has now helped more food and beverage industry. The business PEGGY YU as the mastermind behind Oriental Plaza, than 2.5 million families buy homes with took off in 2001 when Ms. Shaw started a huge real-estate project backed by Mr. loans worth a total of around $28 billion. using the revenue generated by Biocon to Li that transformed an historical section of While Ms. Karnad expects India’s home- finance its own research and development. Beijing into an upscale shopping district. price bubble to burst soon in some areas, Biocon, today India’s premier AGE 41 In her current role, Ms. Chau’s giving she says her company is prepared to weather biotechnology company, raked in 7.93 billion TITLE Co-president and power is likely to increase since Mr. Li this any downturn because of its experience and rupees ($177 million) in revenue last year. founder year announced plans to hand a third of understanding of its customers. When Biocon went public in 2004, Ms. Shaw ORGANIZATION Dangdang.com his estimated $19 billion fortune to the —Eric Bellman became India’s richest businesswoman. The foundation. latest feather in her cap is the launch in India LOCATION China n —Mei Fong LI YIFEI of what is being touted as the first low-cost Peggy Yu and her husband set out in indigenously developed anti-cancer drug. 1999 to create China’s version of Amazon. HU SHULI Her company is fast emerging as a com Inc. Now their company, Dangdang. research-and-development hub. Biocon’s com, is taking its one-time inspiration on AGE 42 next blockbuster product will be an oral head-to-head and, by some measures, TITLE Chief insulin drug, and Ms. Shaw hopes the new winning. representative drug and other projects will make Biocon one Dangdang sells books and a broad range AGE 54 ORGANIZATION Viacom of the world’s top 10 biotech companies. of other items to consumers in more than TITLE Editor-in-chief China 170 cities across China. In 2004, Amazon ORGANIZATION Caijing LOCATION China —Binny Sabharwal bought Dangdang’s Chinese competitor, magazine n If Li Yifei has her way, all kids in China will Joyo, for about $75 million, and while LOCATION China get to watch “Dora the Explorer.” Ms. Li, who YUKAKO UCHINAGA competition is tight, some analysts say n In a country where the government tightly also is managing director of MTV China, was Dangdang is pulling out in front. Its revenues controls the press and sometimes jails handpicked by Sumner Redstone, Viacom’s are doubling each year, and Ms. Yu—who journalists, Hu Shuli is a trailblazer, famous controlling shareholder, to spearhead the started her career as a translator for an early both inside and outside of China for leading company’s push into China. AGE 60 Sino-American joint venture before earning aggressive coverage of corruption and It’s a tall order, given China’s heavily TITLE Senior managing her M.B.A. in the U.S. — is looking to expand China’s economy. controlled media market. Still, Ms. Li, a director even faster. She came to prominence after Beijing native and former tai-chi champion, ORGANIZATION IBM In July, Dangdang received $27 million her magazine revealed stock market has had some success: last year Viacom Japan Ltd. from a group of investors, its third round of manipulations, and bolstered her reputation signed a deal delivering MTV content to LOCATION Japan funding. Ms. Yu says the company would like by leading her magazine to cover severe 250,000 users of China Mobile, the n Yukako Uchinaga is in charge of IBM to use the funds to make acquisitions. acute respiratory syndrome in 2003. She country’s largest wireless carrier, and Japan’s Yamato laboratory, overseeing 2,400 published news-breaking investigations broadcast Nickelodeon kids programming people developing software and hardware. —Jason Dean of the SARS outbreak when other Chinese to 3.5 million households via a joint venture Since joining the company in 1971 as a ZHANG ZIYI publications remained silent, and again with a local partner. system engineer, she led the development distinguished Caijing by running a cover Ms. Li, a mother of two, studied political of software to display Chinese characters on science at Baylor University in the U.S. With article on bird flu earlier this year, calling for IBM computers made in the U.S. her husband, a prominent banker, she is half The software helped IBM expand its greater government transparency on threats of one of China’s power couples. to public health. Most recently, Caijing has business to other countries such as China reported on a major pension and property — Mei Fong and South Korea, where these characters are also used. scandal in Shanghai. AGE 27 MIKA NOGUCHI Ms. Uchinaga, a graduate of the University With more than 20 years of news TITLE Film actress

of Tokyo, is an activist in promoting women AP/Itsno Inouye experience and proficient in English, Ms. Hu LOCATION China is worth watching because of her deftness at work, both in and outside the company. n There’s a common thread to the in pursuing hard-hitting journalism while IBM Japan now has four female directors on growing number of Chinese films that have working her publication’s Communist its 47-member board, after Ms. Uchinaga leapfrogged other foreign-language movies AGE 41 Party connections. Caijing’s editorial became the first woman named to the board at the global box office: most of them have independence from advertisers—rare among TITLE President of IBM Japan in 1995. Ms. Uchinaga is ORGANIZATION Peach starred Zhang Ziyi. Chinese publications—has also freed it from also currently a member of the government She already has been the centerpiece pandering to special interests. John Co. council to study gender equality. LOCATION Japan of three Chinese-language films that made —Geoffrey A. Fowler n In a country long known to be particularly —Miho Inada about $100 million apiece at the box office difficult for entrepreneurs, Mika Noguchi internationally—“Crouching Tiger, Hidden RENU SUD KARNAD has quickly expanded her business from a XIE QIHUA Dragon,” “Hero” and “House of Flying small mail-order company selling imported Daggers”—and last year she starred in the lingerie in 1994 to a trend-setting national English-language “Memoirs of a Geisha.” chain with 19 outlets. That U.S. box-office performance alone AGE 54 Ms. Noguchi has created a niche market would make her the envy of most Hollywood AGE 63 TITLE Director by selling fashionable products that were starlets. But Ms. Zhang has an additional TITLE Chairwoman ORGANIZATION also functional. Her personal story—how the asset that makes her worth watching: Housing Development ORGANIZATION divorced mother of four children created a extraordinary popularity in her home market Finance Corp. Baosteel Group company from scratch—has also provided of China, which is expected to surpass LOCATION India inspiration for young Japanese women. LOCATION China n Renu Sud Karnad was one of the n Nothing shows China’s growing industrial Japan’s considerable entertainment industry Big companies are now taking note: in revenue by 2009. Housing Development Finance Corp.'s first Ms. Noguchi recently signed an alliance strength quite like steel. China is now the Hollywood studios are now scrambling employees. She started off peddling home with Wacoal Corp., Japan’s No. 1 lingerie world’s biggest producer and consumer of loans to housewives in the 1970s. Today she manufacturer, and plans to expand her steel, and Xie Qihua is the industry’s public to make Chinese films—and to secure Ms. is No. 3 in the company that launched home business to the rest of Asia. face. Zhang for a starring role. loans as a business in India. —Miho Inada The only woman to head a major state —Geoffrey A. Fowler