Yin Zhang

Background

Zhang Yin was born Zhang Xiuhua in 1957 as the eldest of eight children. She later changed her name to the more contemporary Yin.

Education

Zhang's father, Zhang De En was a lieutenant in the Red Army, but was jailed for three years during the Cultural Revolution for rightist activity. Because of her father's imprisonment, Zhang never went to college and began working at a young age to support her family. His contacts and connections with the Communist Party would help along her business career.

Career

In the 1980s, Zhang relocated to Shenzhen, accepted a job as a finance associate with a paper-products company, and developed a keen interest in the industry. Additionally, she realized the enormous potential of the recycling sector. Based in Hong Kong, with only US$4000 in savings, she started Nine Dragons, a company that buys scrap paper from the United States and recycles it for use in China. Her goal was to grow Nine Dragons into a major Chinese corporation, and to attain global brand equity. In building the company from the initial start-up phase, Zhang has endured through numerous financial difficulties, unethical practices from unstable business partners, and acts of intimidation by local organized mafia groups. She overcame this by moving to the United States to build her empire, establishing herself as a tycoon in the waste paper and paper recycling industry. To date, she has retained nearly 75 percent of an equity stake in the company that she founded. The shares of Nine Dragons’ have nearly tripled in value since they were introduced on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Zhang’s husband, Ming Chung Liu, currently helps run the company as a senior executive.

The success of the company has springboarded Zhang to the number one ranking in the Hurun Report of the richest Chinese. One of only 35 women in the 500-person report, before the first announcement of her standing in 2003, Zhang kept a low profile, and it surprised many when her net worth was publicized within the Chinese business world. It is reported that Zhang attempted to communicate with the group that releases the report, requesting that her name not be included on the list. When she earned the number one ranking she surpassed Huang Guangyu, the retail mogul of Gome Electrical Supplies. What is perhaps most noteworthy is that she has succeeded as an entrepreneur in an economic and political system that is heavily skewed toward male dominance, and features a business system in which several male-dominated networks control the flow of commerce within the country.

Achievements

• In October 2006, she became, at the age of 49, the first woman to top the list of richest people in China published by the Hurun Report. In 2010 Zhang's personal fortune was valued at approximately US$4.6 billion, making her the wealthiest self-made woman in the world, ahead of Oprah Winfrey, J.K. Rowling, Giuliana Benetton, Meg Whitman, and Rosalia Mera. Forbes magazine put her wealth at US$1.35 billion in November 2006, which would have made her then the richest woman in China and the fifth richest person in China. (On a later Forbes list she was displaced as China's richest woman by 25-year-old Yang Huiyan)
  
  On June 2014, Zhang was named Asian CEO of the Year for 2014 at RISI's 15th annual Asian Pulp and Paper Conference.

Views

Quotations: “Besides the five concerns, I have more worries about the region's future development".

"Good timing, geographical convenience and harmonious human relations contributed to my success".

Membership

• 3rd session of the 11th CPPCC , China

  March 10, 2012

• Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference , China

  January, 2007

Connections

Zhang's first marriage resulted in one child and a divorce. She met her second husband, Liu Ming Chung, in Hong Kong and the couple married shortly after moving to America. Liu was born in Taiwan, grew up in Brazil and was trained as a dental surgeon, a career path he left in order to pursue the paper business with his wife.

Zhang has two children, both of whom live and study in the United States. Her older son Lau Chun Shun is a non-executive director of Nine Dragons, and Zhang has stated that her children's inheritance of the company would depend on their objective capabilities.

Father:

Cheung Deen

He was a lieutenant in the Red Army and later became general manager of a metallurgy company in Guangdong. His contacts and connections with the Communist Party would help along her business career

husband:

Ming Chung Liu

He was trained as a dental, but now he is a CEO of Nine Dragons Paper.

Brother:

Zhang Cheng Fei

He handles general management at Nine Dragons Paper.

Son:

Lau Chun

He is nonexecutive director at Nine Dragons Paper.