Zong Qinghou (Chinese: 宗庆后; born 1945) is a Chinese business owner, creator, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Hangzhou Wahaha Group, the leading drink firm in China. He was ranked as China’s wealthiest man of 2012 and second-richest man of 2013, according to the China Rich List, released by Hurun Report. On the International Abundant List, he is 35th richest male worldwide, with a projected net worth of US$ 20 billion., Zong is a delegate to the Chinese National People’s Congress.
Bio
Zong is a native of Zhejiang, as well as has had little official education. After finishing from secondary school, Zong operated at the Zhoushan salt farm. He returned house in 1979 on the retirement of his mother, that was a teacher. He ultimately returned to Hangzhou, and just found routine work at a local institution due to the reduced level of his education. In 1987, he targeted a minigrocery in a college in Shangcheng Area ， Hangzhou, offering milk. Zong goinged the beginning Wahaha organisation, which dispersed fizzy soft drinks, ice as well as stationery. Together with 2 retired teachers, he obtained the amount of CNY 140,000, to start generating milk beverages for circulation.
He got independence from an early government companion by emphasizing his links with Danone. With his dictatorial design and also workaholic ethic, he built Wahaha right into the biggest drink producer in the People’s Republic of China.
The WHH joint endeavor became part of with Groupe Danone included the internal investment of US$ 70 million in 5 joint endeavor companies for 51% Groupe Danone possession in each business. The hallmark arrangement joined 29 February 1996 provided the JVs the unique rights of production, circulation and sales of items under the Wahaha brand name. Cooperation has turned into 39 joint venture entities by 2007.
In 2007, the relationship turned sour. Danone had actually implicated Wahaha of “covertly operating a set of identical business that mirrored the joint endeavor’s procedures with practically identical products and siphoned off as long as $100 million from the collaboration.” Danone and also Wahaha reached a settlement and also liquified their collaboration. Zong surrendered as Chairman of the joint endeavors on 5 June 2007.
His net worth of $20.1 billion as of Oct. 5 ranks him No. 30 in the world, according to the Bloomberg Markets magazine. Supermarkets stock the juice, soda and bottled water his Hangzhou Wahaha Group produces, and doting Chinese parents buy his baby formula and children’s clothes. In all of Asia, only Hong Kong property developers Li Ka-shing and Lee Shau-kee and Indian industrialist Mukesh Ambani are richer.
Even in a country that has exploded in wealth and created a new economic ruling class, Zong’s story stands out. His rags-to-riches tale is remarkable not just for its trajectory but for the way he has thrived amid China’s seemingly impossible conflation of capitalism and communism.
Zong, who didn’t attend high school, lived on a farm commune from 1964 to 1978 during Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution. He read the Communist revolutionary’s books on leadership and learned about enduring through struggle. After Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China’s drive toward a market economy, came to power, Zong took over a grocery store in 1987 with two retired teachers and a $22,000 loan from relatives.
Source:
1.Wikipedia