Forbes reveals China’s top 100 businesswomen

SHINE | 17-Jun-2022 | By Li Qian

Forbes China has unveiled its latest list of China’s top 100 businesswomen with Cao Xiaochun top. Cao is co-founder and president of Hangzhou Tigermed Consulting, one of China’s largest providers of research and clinical trial services. Notably, she was the only one from the Chinese mainland to be listed as a top 20 Asian women business leaders by Forbes last November.

The list ranks female business leaders by their business performance as well as their role and impact in the industry. This year’s list includes 35 new entries, half of whom work in pharmaceuticals, technology and retailing. The average age of the women on the list is 51, with 60 percent holding a master’s degree or higher, and 25 percent with overseas education background. The market value of the companies that they run has exceeded 1.1 trillion yuan (US$174 billion). Near half of them work and live in Shanghai and Beijing.

Cao is followed in the top three by Great Wall Motor’s general manager Wang Fengying and Tao Haihong, general manager of NAURA Technology Group, a leading enterprise of integrated circuit high-end technological equipment in China. Wang Laichun, chairwoman of electronics supplier Luxshare, finished fourth, and Wu Yajun, chairwoman of property developer Longfor Group Holdings, fifth. Of fixtures in the list, Dong Mingzhu, chairwoman of Gree Electric Appliances, ranked 12th, Zong Fuli, vice chairwoman of the Wahaha Group, ranked 20th, and Yang Huiyan, co-chairwoman of the Country Garden, ranked 26th.

In the sector of social media, Kelly Zhang, chairman of ByteDance China, is at No.18, Li Ni, vice chairwoman of Bilibili, is at 33th, Qu Fang, founder of Xiaohognshu, is at 46th, and Yang Tao, vice president of Pop Mart, is at 68th.

Of female leaders in multinational companies, Apple’s vice president in China Isabel Ge Mahe is 23th, Wang Jingying, president of Starbucks China is 28th, and Samantha Zhu, chairwoman of Accenture China is 37th.