Background
Lee was born in 1935 into a tea farmer’s family, which allowed him to absorb a great deal of knowledge and skills regarding tea.
瑞河 李
Lee was born in 1935 into a tea farmer’s family, which allowed him to absorb a great deal of knowledge and skills regarding tea.
Lee Rie-Ho was educated locally.
In 1988, when the stock market in Taiwan was experiencing a boom, Lee was encouraged by his family and friends to form a stock exchange company. Only one year later, the Taiwan stock index had risen to 10 000 points, and Lee’s company had doubled its original investment of NT$300 million. Exuberant, the company’s major stockholders urged Lee to add a financial service arm, which was not permissible by law at that time. Under great competitive pressure, Lee agreed to provide the unauthorized service through his company. However, this action led to unexpected negative returns, as in 1990 the Taiwan stock market went through its first negative growth as a result of continued losses. While Lee was doing business in Japan, a phone call from one of the major stockholders in Taiwan informed him that the stock exchange company lacked the approximately NT$200 million necessary for the next day’s stock transactions. If sufficient funding could not be secured, regulation violations would occur in the form of illegal transactions. This sudden event, described as a nightmare by the then 56-year-old Lee, exposed the company’s problems in terms of its top management structure. Financial strategy was not a significant part of the core capabilities of Lee’s business group at that time. Although Lee had recruited professionals to assist in running the business, most of the decision-making authority was centralized in the hands of several founding partners and managers of the company, who were not stock exchange business professionals. Though Lee delegated full authority to these non-professionals in top management, they did not reciprocate with informative, verifiable reports.
The situation led Lee to consider suicide, but in the end, he decided to face up to the problems ahead. On top of organizing a special team to evaluate the risks facing the company, Lee also took responsibility for its poor organization and management, and sold his own stocks and real estate assets to gather the required NT$200 million. This measure clearly exemplifies Lee’s personal philosophy of accountability, which in turn earned him a great deal of respect from others involved in the same industry. However, due to the regulation violations, Lee still had to face charges. Fortunately, because he took full responsibility for the problem, Lee only received a mild probationary sentence of two years, even though he was preparing to step down and serve his time in prison.
Encouraged by this outcome, Lee decided to start a new business that would give him another chance to prove himself. He went abroad to investigate foreign markets in Southeastern Asia and China. Eventually, he chose mainland China as the stage for his comeback, after careful consideration of the 1.2 billion potential customers there. He decided on a return to his specialized tea business. Moreover, Lee’s experience told him that the environment around the potential production base was very suitable for growing high-quality tea. Nevertheless, in the beginning Lee’s family opposed the idea of moving into China due to the unfamiliar business context. Also problematic was the fact that Lee’s old crew and close friends were greatly affected by the earlier entrepreneurial failure, and few had enough resources to invest in this second business. In the end, the resilient entrepreneur found a way to succeed. When Lee released information regarding his intention to start another business, his trustworthy style of business management and personality attracted several significant colleagues from various industries who were willing to take on the risk in the hopes that Lee could succeed again. He also collaborated with the local government and took over the Yu-Shan tea farm. Furthermore, Lee transferred more advanced tea articulation technology from Taiwan to mainland China.