Zhou Qunfei, Yang Luhan and 3 more female Chinese entrepreneurs worth more than a billion
From the world of tech to online dating, these 5 success stories prove that in the 21st century, gender should be no barrier to success
It was once said that behind every successful man is a woman. But now, thankfully, the face of success is increasingly female.
To celebrate the growing, and long overdue, opportunities for women, we highlight five female Chinese entrepreneurs who have made it big – and made big money – despite any hurdles.
Zhou Qunfei
If you use an Apple, Samsung or Huawei device, chances are you’ve bought something from Zhou Qunfei’s company. Lens Technology supplies these companies with touch screens. And they have made Zhou the world’s richest self-made woman.
With Forbes estimating her net worth to be at US$9.6 billion, it’s hard to believe how far she has come given her rough start in life. With her father losing a finger and being blinded in a factory accident and her mother dying when Zhou was just five, the odds were stacked against Zhou from the beginning.
At 16, she dropped out of high school to work at a factory while taking night classes. By 1993, she had eventually saved up a grand sum of HK$20,000 (US$2,570) to start her own business – a family-run watch lens workshop that operated out of a three-bedroom flat.
She grew the business and caught her big break when she won a contract with Motorola in 2003.
On the 22nd anniversary of the establishment of her first start-up, Lens Technology had an IPO listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2015. Forbes listed it as having a market cap of US$11.4 billion that year.