A former state factory worker who became China's richest self-made woman in property
She worked in a state-owned optical instruments factory in Chongqing before turning to journalism and then property, co-founding Longfor Group and…
A blacksmith climber who built Patagonia and then gave the company to the planet
He forged climbing pitons in his parents’ backyard, sold them from his car and lived on cat food. He dropped his best-selling product when he saw it…
A factory worker from Beijing who studied her way to Cambridge and built China's Soho skyline
She left school at 14 to work in a garment factory in Hong Kong, saved enough to study in Britain, and returned to China to co-found SOHO China, one…
She left a state accounting job to trade wastepaper and became a self-made paper billionaire
Starting with a small stake of savings, she began exporting American wastepaper to Chinese mills, then built her own recycling and packaging plants…
A factory girl who left school at 16 and became the world’s richest self-made woman
Her mother died when she was five and her father was partly blinded in an accident. She worked long shifts making watch glass in Shenzhen, then…
