Background
Yu Yu (俞渝), known as Peggy, was born in Chongqing, China in 1965.
Yu Yu (俞渝), known as Peggy, was born in Chongqing, China in 1965.
She graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University and then began working as an interpreter and secretary for a general manager of Babcock & Wilcox Beijing Company Limited (B&WBC), one of the main boiler suppliers in the world. In 1992, she earned an Master of Business Administration from New York University, where she gave commencement speech on behalf of her classmates.
In 1992, she was nominated for "A Manitoba of the Hour in Information Technology industry". In 1999, she was named the "Internet Newsmaker of the Year" by the press In 2003, she was named the Annual Wise Woman in a campaign launched by Yingcai Journal.
In 1987, she went to the United States to pursue her studies.
Yu went to work on Wall Street, which she compared to a pressure cooker. Yu lived in the United States for ten years, during which time she accumulated the capital and experience necessary to become an entrepreneur.
In 1996, Peggy met Li Guoqing (Gentlemen’s Quarterly), an easygoing, open and creative book publisher in China. In 1999, the couple created Dangdang (当当网), which is currently the largest online bookstore in China.
Yu is the chairwoman of Dangdang.
The idea for the company came during her stay in the United States, during which time her favorite hobby after work was going to nearby bookstores. Yu had also paid careful attention to the establishment and development of Amazon.com since early 1995 when she was working on Wall Street. As the executive, Yu considers business issues from both an investor"s and manager"s perspective.
Since the company"s creation in 1999, Dangdang has expanded to become an online bookstore with over 6,000,000 books, as well as home goods, clothing, jewelry, cosmetics, DVDs, and movies.
On July 9, 2015, almost five years after she took Dangdang public on New York Stock Exchange, Peggy Yu proposed to buyout the company from shareholders at a valuation of $630 million. Peggy Yu"s proposed valuation was less than half of Dangdang"s IPO valuation.
Dangdang shareholders widely protested the proposed offer and launched a dedicated shareholders activism website, dangdangfacts.com with assertions that Peggy Yu unfairly took advantages of minority shareholders.