Zhang Xin

In the 1950s, Zhang Xin's parents, second generation Burmese Chinese, left Burma and immigrated to China.{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/7856265/Meet-Zhang-Xin-Chinas-self-made-billionairess.html|title=Meet Zhang Xin, China's self-made billionairess|last=Foster|first=Peter|date=27 June 2010|work=Telegraph UK|access-date=4 March 2013}}{{cite book|last=Li|first=Ingrid|title=Zhang Xin: On the Return to China|year=2006|publisher=Jorge Pinto Books|pages=1–2|isbn=9780977472413}}{{cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/07/11/the-turtles|title=The Turtles: How an unlikely couple became China's best-known real-estate moguls|first=Jianying|last=Zha|magazine=The New Yorker|date=11 July 2005}} There, they worked as translators at the Foreign Languages Press.{{cite news|url=http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/architecture_and_design/article4415876.ece |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110615132316/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/architecture_and_design/article4415876.ece |url-status=dead |archive-date=2011-06-15 |title=Zhang Xin and Pan Shiyi: Beijing's It-couple |date=2008-08-02 |author=Bettina von Hase |newspaper=The Times of London |access-date=2010-08-06 }} They separated during the Cultural Revolution.

Born in Beijing in 1965, Zhang remained with her mother after the separation of her parents, moving with her mother to Hong Kong at the age of 15, where they lived in a room just big enough for two bunk beds. To save for an education abroad, she worked for five years in small factories that made garment and electronic products.{{cite magazine|url=https://video.vanityfair.com/watch/founders-fair-how-zhang-xin-became-the-woman-who-built-beijing | title= How Zhang Xin Became the 'Woman Who Built Beijing' | date= April 2018 |magazine=Vanity Fair| access-date=15 May 2018}} By the age of 19, she had saved enough for airfare to London and to support herself for English study at a secretarial school in Oxford.{{Cite news|url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-03/beijing-billionaire-who-grew-up-with-mao-sees-no-bubble-in-china-property.html |title=Beijing Billionaire Who Grew Up With Mao Sees No Housing Bubble |date=September 2010 |author= William Mellor |publisher=Bloomberg Markets magazine |access-date=2010-08-06 }} To support herself in the UK, she "worked in a traditional British fish and chip shop run by a Chinese couple," and took on Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as a role model, while also developing a "fascination with left-wing British intellectuals."

In 1987, while still studying in London, she earned a scholarship that enabled her to begin studying economics at the University of Sussex, where she received a bachelor's degree. In 1992, she graduated with a master's degree in development economics from Cambridge University,{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/7856265/Meet-Zhang-Xin-Chinas-self-made-billionairess.html|title=Meet Zhang Xin, China's self-made billionairess|newspaper=The Telegraph|access-date=5 March 2013}} where she wrote her master's thesis on privatization in China. In 2013, Zhang received an honorary doctorate from the University of Sussex.{{cite web|last1=Sussex|first1=University of|title=Sussex encouraged me to become the person I am, says entrepreneur Z|url=http://www.sussex.ac.uk/broadcast/read/20089|website=University of Sussex|access-date=14 May 2018}}

Upon graduation, Zhang was hired by Barings PLC (later Barings Bank), which had scouted Cambridge for students with knowledge of privatization in China, and which hired Zhang on the strength of her master's thesis on the topic. She returned to Hong Kong to work, but in 1993, her unit at Barings was acquired by Goldman Sachs, and Zhang was transferred to New York City, where she helped bring privatized Chinese factories to the public stock exchange. Intrigued by China's burgeoning urbanization, she returned to her hometown, Beijing, where she met and married her husband—who purportedly proposed just four days after they met, in 1994. In 1994, the couple began a mixed-use development project on unwanted land, called "New Town."

She co-founded Hongshi (meaning Red Stone), which later became SOHO China, with her husband Pan Shiyi in 1995. Over the next decade, they began six additional development projects in China, including a residential development in Boao, on the island of Hainan, and the Commune by the Great Wall, a managed boutique hotel in Beijing featuring the works of twelve Asian architects recruited by Zhang. Early in their marriage and business relationship, the couple experienced friction due to differing ideas of how the business should be run, leading Zhang to return to England for a time to reflect. Eventually, she decided to return to her husband, but left the business for a time, returning to focus on the design end when business increased.

Within 10 years after Zhang and Shiyi started their company, it was the largest property developer in the country, with Zhang known as "the woman who built Beijing".{{cite web|url=https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/family-relationships/how-zhang-xin-became-the-woman-who-built-beijing/vp-AAvR1G7|title=How Zhang Xin Became the 'Woman Who Built Beijing'|publisher=MSNBC|website=MSN|date=13 April 2018}}{{cite web|url=https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/22/soho-china-zhang-xin-england-shaped-the-woman-who-built-beijing.html|title=How time in England shaped 'the woman who built Beijing'|first=Justina|last=Crabtree|publisher=CNBC|date=22 June 2017}} By 2008, the couple was described by The Times as "China's most visible and flamboyant property tycoons." In 2011, Zhang began to transition from merely developing and selling properties to buying and leasing space, and branched out of China by acquiring a $600 million stake in New York City's Park Avenue Plaza, followed by participation in a group acquiring a 40 percent stake in the General Motors Building in midtown Manhattan in 2014, for a reported $1.4 billion. By that time, Zhang, through SOHO China, was involved in 18 developments in Beijing and 11 in Shanghai.{{cite news|url= http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/02/business/richer-than-trump-or-oprah/index.html?hpt=ias_t4 |title= Richer than Trump or Oprah: Meet China's female property magnate |first= Pauline | last= Chiou | date = 3 July 2013 |access-date= 4 July 2013 |agency= CNN}}

In 2014, Zhang and her husband launched a $100 million charitable initiative, the SOHO China Scholarships, "to fund disadvantaged Chinese students at top institutions across the globe," including gifts of over $10 million to Yale University, over $15 million to Harvard University, and $10 million to the University of Chicago; the gifts engendered some controversy among critics who felt that the money could have been spent improving schools in China. The SOHO China Scholarships support approximately 50 Chinese students pursuing undergraduate degrees at partner universities.{{cite news|url= https://www.case.org/node/8342|title=Zhang Xin|agency=CASE}}

SOHO China began a transition from a business model of building and selling properties to one of buying and leasing them, with Zhang participating in the February 2015 launch of the SOHO 3Q shared office space sector, leasing shared space to companies in cities in China.

Zhang moved to the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic and resigned from SOHO China in September 2022.{{Cite news |last=Bradsher |first=Keith |date=2022-09-08 |title=Twilight of Entrepreneurs in China as More Leave the Country |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/08/business/soho-china-entrepreneurs.html |access-date=2023-02-20 |issn=0362-4331}}

File:Zhang Xin awarded 'Special Prize at the 8th International Architecture Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia in 2002.png

Zhang has received international awards for her role as an architectural patron in China and as an entrepreneur. In 2002, she was awarded a special prize at the 8th la Biennale di Venezia for Commune by the Great Wall, a private collection of architecture, now a hotel.

Zhang is a member of World Economic Forum, Davos and a board member of the Harvard Global Advisory Council.{{cite web|last1=China|first1=SOHO|title=GAC Member Directory|url=https://alumni.harvard.edu/global-advisory-council/member-directory|website=Harvard Global Advisory Council|access-date=14 May 2018}} She served as a trustee to the China Institute in America from 2005 to 2010, and was recognized by the China Institute with a Blue Cloud Award in 2010.{{cite web|url=http://www.kamsky.com/china-institute-2011-gala-honoring-virginia-kamsky-and-zhang-xin/|title=2011 China Institute Gala Honors Virginia Kamsky and Zhang Xin|website=Kamsky Associates Inc|access-date=14 May 2018}} In 2014, Zhang was listed as the 62nd most powerful woman in the world by Forbes. and is "regularly named one of the top businesswomen in the world." Zhang and her husband have also been ranked by Forbes among the "world's most powerful couples." Zhang has been named a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art{{cite web|url=https://www.moma.org/about/trustees|title=Officers and trustees - MoMA|website=The Museum of Modern Art|access-date=20 February 2019}} and of the Asia Business Council.{{cite web|url=https://asiabusinesscouncil.org/executive/|title=Asia Business Council Board of Trustees Zhang Xin|website=Asia Business Council|access-date=December 29, 2021}}

Zhang made a cameo appearance, as a representative of a Chinese investor, in the 2010 film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.{{cite magazine |last=Epstein |first=Gady |date=20 October 2010 |title=Chinese Billionaire Goes Hollywood In 'Wall Street' Sequel |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/gadyepstein/2010/10/20/chinese-billionaire-goes-hollywood-in-wall-street-sequel/#23950bff7b6e |magazine=Forbes}}

Zhang and Pan have two sons. They are members of the Baháʼí Faith.{{cite magazine|url=https://www.forbes.com/2010/03/12/zhang-xin-soho-china-billionaire-beijing-dispatch.html|magazine=Forbes|title=A Billionaire Worth Rooting For?|date=3 December 2010}}{{cite news|url=http://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-chinese-billionaire-developer-embraces-religion-2011-03-06|title=MarketWatch: Chinese Billionaire Embraces Religion|first=Yuan|last=Li|newspaper=The Wall Street Journal|date=6 March 2011}}

{{Reflist}}

• Gillet, Kit. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20111127171754/http://www.cibmagazine.com.cn/Features/Face_To_Face.asp?id=1190&zhang_xin.html ZHANG XIN]" ([http://web.archive.org/web/20111127171754/http://www.cibmagazine.com.cn/Features/Face_To_Face.asp?id=1190&zhang_xin.html Archive]). China International Business (CIB). January 2010 issue, 19 January 2010.

{{Commons category}}

• [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-11/china-s-billionaire-builder.html "China's Billionaire Builder,"] Bloomberg Markets Magazine, 11 August 2010
• [https://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704444604576173402109524780 "How Religion Changes a Chinese Billionaire Developer"], The Wall Street Journal, 6 March 2011
• {{Charlie Rose view|7211}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Zhang, Xin}}

Category:1965 births

Category:Living people

Category:SOHO China people

Category:21st-century Bahá'ís

Category:Alumni of the University of Sussex

Category:Alumni of Wolfson College, Cambridge

Category:Chinese Bahá'ís

Category:Chinese women chief executives

Category:Chinese businesspeople in real estate

Category:Converts to the Bahá'í Faith

Category:Businesspeople from Beijing

Category:Chinese people of Burmese descent

Category:Female billionaires

Category:Billionaires from Beijing

Category:20th-century Chinese businesswomen

Category:20th-century Chinese businesspeople

Category:21st-century Chinese businesswomen

Category:21st-century Chinese businesspeople

Category:Chinese women company founders