| Zhang Xin | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 24, 1965 Beijing, China |
| Occupation | CEO, SOHO China |
| Website | |
| http://www.sohochina.com | |
Zhang Xin (simplified Chinese: 张欣; traditional Chinese: 張欣; pinyin: Zhāng Xīn, born 1965) is a businesswoman from Mainland China. Presently, she is the CEO of SOHO China, the largest real estate developer in Beijing.
Her parents returned to China from Burma in the fifties and worked as translators at the Bureau of Foreign Languages.[1] They separated during the Cultural Revolution. Born in Beijing in 1965, Zhang Xin moved to Hong Kong at age of 14 with her mother and lived in a room just big enough for two bunk beds. She worked for five years in small factories that make garment and electronic products to save for education abroad. She described the 'conditions there were similar to those in mainland China today'.
By 19, she had saved enough for airfare to London and supporting herself for English study at secretarial school.[2] Later, she studied Economics at the University of Sussex. In 1992, she graduated with a Master’s Degree in Development Economics from Cambridge University. Upon graduation, she was hired by Barings Plc to work in Hong Kong. She soon moved to Goldman Sachs and started working for the investment bank. In 1994 she switched to Travelers Group before returning to her hometown, Beijing. She co-founded Hongshi (meaning Red Stone), which became SOHO China, with her husband Pan Shiyi in 1995.[2] The couple was described by The Times of London as 'China’s most visible and flamboyant property tycoons'.[1] SOHO China is the largest property developer in central Beijing.
Zhang Xin has won many prestigious international awards for her role as a patron of visionary architecture in China and as an innovative entrepreneur. She won BusinessWeek´s Stars of Asia Award for the year of 2004, and was awarded a Special Prize at the 8th la Biennale di Venezia. She also received the Year 2004 Montblanc Arts Patronage Award.[3] In 2007, she was selected as one of the “Ten Women to Watch in Asia” by the Wall Street Journal. In 2008, she was listed among Forbes magazine's "World's Most Powerful Women". In 2009, Zhang Xin was included among Forbes’ "Top Ten Billionaire Women We Admire" and Financial Times’ "Top 50 Women in World Business". In March 2010 she was named among “China Top 10 Career Women Role Models in 2009” by the All-China Women’s Federation, China Sun Media Group, Sina.com and Hunan TV.
Zhang Xin is a member and Young Global Leader of World Economic Forum, Davos, as well as a trustee of China Institute in America and a member of Asia Business Council.
She and her husband, Pan Shiyi, are members of the Bahá'í Faith since 2005.[4][5][6] She also made a cameo appearance as a Chinese merchant in the 2010 film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.