2005年商界女性50强：当红女杰 何晶
Ho Ching Chief Executive, Temasek Holdings
Ho Ching calls the shots at one of Asia's premier investment companies. She is also married to Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, son of the city-state's founding father, Lee Kuan Yew.
But despite being in the spotlight, Ms. Ho works hard to keep a low profile. She doesn't give interviews, and when she does speak at public events, she rarely answers questions.
Her reticence, though, seems to stop there. Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd., Singapore's state-owned investment company, has become one of Asia's most aggressive investors since she became chief executive in 2002. Under the 52-year-old's leadership, the company, which controls most of Singapore's state-owned corporations, has diversified its reach across Asia, particularly in China and India.
Her appointment as head of Temasek was questioned in press reports outside Singapore. Temasek Chairman Suppiah Dhanabalan told the Singapore press at the time that Ms. Ho was the best person for the job, and that her family connections were "a hindrance more than anything else." But the subject is still a touchy one in Singapore: Last year, the Economist paid US$237,800 in damages and apologized to Lee Kuan Yew and Lee Hsien Loong in connection with an article published by the magazine that alleged Ms. Ho's appointment was not wholly based on merit.
Ms. Ho has a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Singapore, and a master's from Stanford. She began her career at Singapore's Ministry of Defense and in 1987 joined Singapore Technologies, a defense contractor owned by Temasek. She rose to CEO and president, and turned the company into a conglomerate with interests in telecommunications, engineering, logistics and aerospace.
Ms. Ho, who declined to be interviewed for this article, is described by people who have worked with her as sharp and incisive. Bankers who pitch Temasek investment ideas say they go prepared; Ms. Ho tends to listen quietly to presentations, then relentlessly drill through the numbers afterward.
Temasek's holdings penetrate every key segment of Singapore's economy, including telecom, shipping, power, property and health care. On her watch, Temasek also has become one of the most aggressive investors in China and India. In August, it signed a deal to invest US$3.6 billion in the Bank of China.
The company's first public financial statement, in November 2004, to pave the way for a debt offering, wasn't exciting: Temasek's investment portfolio stood at S$90 billion (US$53 billion), but the company had managed just a 3% annual return, as measured by market value, over the past decade. To be fair, it was a tough period for Singapore's stock market, hit by the 1997-98 regional economic crisis, then the 2003 outbreak of severe-acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS.
Still, investors appear to like where Temasek and Ms. Ho are headed. A planned US$1 billion bond offering was recently increased to US$1.75 billion.
Izumi Kobayashi
President, Merrill Lynch Japan Securities
When Izumi Kobayashi took charge of Merrill Lynch Japan Securities Co. in December 2001, the brokerage firm was in disarray. A ballyhooed attempt to break into Japan's retail stock brokerage business had failed, and Merrill was bleeding cash. That year, the Merrill Lynch & Co. unit had a loss of nearly $550 million.
Four years later, Ms. Kobayashi has steered the firm out of its darkest days. By fiscal 2003, Merrill had become the most profitable foreign brokerage firm in Japan, raking in nearly $130 million in profit. For 2004, it announced even better earnings: $172 million.
Since becoming both the first woman and the first Japanese to run the Japan unit, Ms. Kobayashi, 46 years old, has demonstrated a willingness to make tough decisions and carry them out quickly. She also has been able to identify areas of growth and build them out to get in front of the competition.
Among the tough decisions: Closing most of Merrill's retail offices and slashing staff by almost two-thirds -- an extremely difficult task in Japan. The closures were hard for Merrill, which had made a high-profile investment a few years earlier in Yamaichi Securities, one of Japan's top four brokerage firms before it failed. Ms. Kobayashi also slimmed the equity sales and trading department and the equity-research department, as Japan's stock market began sinking in 2001 to its lowest level since the country's stock and property bubbles collapsed in the early 1990s.
Ms. Kobayashi says she used her veteran status to earn the trust of her colleagues. "We told our people that it was not just about cutting for the present, but about strengthening the company for future growth," she says. "Then we had to show them that was the truth."
Now, she is overseeing one of the more aggressive expansions among foreign investment banks in Japan. Since the beginning of the year, Merrill's bond team has grown 25% to 65 people, in a bet that debt financing will become more popular with Japanese companies. The company has expanded its mergers-and-acquisitions team by 21% to 103 people. That investment has started to pay off: At the end of this year's first half, Merrill was Japan's third most-active M&A adviser, participating in $49.8 billion in deals, according to Thomson Financial.
The turnaround Ms. Kobayashi engineered for Merrill mirrors the U-turn she executed in her own life. After graduating from college, Ms. Kobayashi embarked on a typical Japanese woman's path. She joined a chemical company, making copies and pouring tea for male colleagues. But after four years, she got fed up and joined Merrill.
Starting in Merrill's back office in 1985, she worked in the firm's derivatives and operations areas. She rose to become director of operations -- overseeing trade processing, settlement and custody -- in 1998. Two years later, she became chief administrative officer.
Xie Qihua
Chairwoman, Shanghai Baosteel
Ask Xie Qihua about her personal life and you'll get evasive answers. But when the subject turns to her goals as chairwoman of China's largest steel producer, the message is straightforward: make Shanghai Baosteel one of the world's top three producers.
Now ranked No. 6 with 20 million tons of annual production capacity, Baosteel is quickly adding capacity. And much of the credit goes to the 62-year-old Ms. Xie, whose steady stewardship of one of the nation's largest business groups has led to the nickname China's Iron Lady.
Formed from two factories in 1978, Baosteel has expanded right along with China itself, with 22 wholly owned subsidiaries -- nine of them overseas -- and market capitalization of $5.7 billion.
Peter Marcus, managing partner of research firm World Steel Dynamics Inc., says Baosteel succeeds partly because the corporate culture instilled by Ms. Xie breeds good ideas. "Ms. Xie is an administrative power," he says, "and she has happy people working for her."
Within China, Baosteel's -- and Ms. Xie's -- footprint extends well beyond its namesake sector. And that gives Ms. Xie a role across a number of important industries, particularly finance. The company owns large stakes in major Chinese banks and has been an innovator in market reforms. For instance, when the Chinese government was looking for a way to boost confidence in a key stock-market reform, it asked a publicly traded division of Baosteel to set an example and streamline its ownership structure.
Trained as a civil engineer at Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University, the Shanghai-born Ms. Xie spent over a decade during the tumultuous Cultural Revolution working as a technician in a small steel company in the northeastern province of Shaanxi. She has been with Baosteel since it was established in 1978 and has worked her way up the ladder. "I didn't expect to become a leader of a steel company," she said in an interview earlier this year.
When China began to trade with the rest of the world, Deng Xiaoping designated Baosteel to lead the charge, using modern technology imported from Japan. Today, Ms. Xie is eager to emphasize that equipment employed by the company, on China's mighty Yangtze River, is increasingly homegrown.
But now, the fast expansion of capacity in China's steel industry championed by Ms. Xie threatens to flood the world market with metal. Global steel prices are being tugged lower this year as a result.
Ms. Xie's next challenge: move Baosteel further up the quality chain, making more high-grade products.
2005年商界女性50强：当红女杰 何晶
淡马锡控股(Temasek Holdings)首席执行长
现年52岁的何晶是这家亚洲著名投资公司的掌门人。此外，她还有另外一个重要身份：新加坡总理李显龙的夫人、新加坡国父李光耀的儿媳。
但是尽管备受瞩目，何晶仍努力保持低调。她从不接受采访，即使在公开场合讲话，她也很少回答人们的提问。
不过，她的缄默似乎要告一段落了。自从她2002年执掌淡马锡控股以来，这家控制著当地多数国有企业的新加坡国有投资公司已经成为亚洲最野心勃勃的投资者之一。在她的领导下，淡马锡控股将触角延伸到整个亚洲地区，尤其是中国和印度。
何晶被委以此任时，新加坡以外的媒体纷纷提出质疑。当时，淡马锡控股董事长丹那巴南(Suppiah Dhanabalan)向当地媒体表示，何晶是这个职位的最佳人选，她的家庭背景反而可能会成为她工作中的障碍，而不是益处。不过，这在新加坡仍是一个敏感话题：去年，因载文称何晶的任命缺乏充分根据，《经济学家》(Economist)杂志支付了237,800美元的赔偿金，并向李光耀和李显龙道歉。
何晶拥有新加坡大学(University of Singapore)电子工程学学士学位和斯坦福大学(Stanford)硕士学位。大学毕业后，她先在新加坡国防部(Ministry of Defense)工作，1987年加入新加坡科技(Singapore Technologies)，该公司是淡马锡控股旗下的国防合约分包商。后来她逐步升任到公司首席执行长兼总裁，并将其转型为一家业务范围涉及电信、工程、物流和航空业的综合性企业。
在与何晶共事过的人们眼中，她是一个精明强干、思想敏锐的人。那些游说淡马锡控股投资的银行家们说他们事先都做好了思想准备；何晶往往先安静地聆听情况介绍，然后毫不留情地透过数字直击本质。
淡马锡控股的资产渗透到新加坡经济的所有重要领域，包括电信、船运、电力、房地产和医疗保健等。在何晶的率领下，这家公司还成为在中国和印度最活跃的投资者之一。今年8月，它签署一项协议，投资36亿美元参股中国银行(Bank of China)。
在2004年11月，该公司为发行债券而首次公布的财务报告乏善可陈：投资资产总额为900亿新元（约合530亿美元），但以市值衡量，其过去十年的年均回报率只有3%。公平地讲，这段时期恰逢新加坡股市举步维艰之际，其间经历了1997-98年亚洲经济危机的重创，2003年又遭遇了非典型肺炎(SARS)疫情的打击。
不过，投资者似乎对淡马锡控股的发展方向和何晶的领导思路比较认同。最近，该公司原计划10亿美元的债券发行规模被提高到17.5亿美元。
小林泉(Izumi Kobayashi)
美林证券（日本）公司(Merrill Lynch Japan Securities)总裁
当2001年12月小林泉担纲美林证券（日本）公司时，这家经纪公司的经营状况一团糟。之前大肆渲染的进军日本零售股票经纪业务的努力以失败告终，资金源源不断地流出。那一年，这家美林公司(Merrill Lynch & Co.)的子公司亏损近5.5亿美元。
四年之后，小林泉率领公司走出了低谷。到2003财年，美林证券（日本）公司一跃成为日本最盈利的外国经纪公司，实现利润近1.3亿美元。到了2004财年，它宣布了更可观的利润：1.72亿美元。
46岁的小林泉是美林证券（日本）公司首位女性掌门，也是该公司第一个本土领导人。在她的管理生涯中，她乐于作出艰难决策并且能够迅速付诸实施。她还善于发现业务的增长领域，抢在竞争对手之前扩大那部分业务。 她作出的艰难决策包括：关闭美林大部分零售业务机构、裁员近三分之二──这在日本是极其困难的事情。对美林来说，这是一次痛苦的选择，它在几年前刚刚高调入股山一证券公司(Yamaichi Securities)，后者在破产前是日本四大经纪公司之一。除此之外，小林泉还精简了股票销售和研究部门，因为在上世纪90年代初日本股市和房地产市场泡沫破灭之后，当地股市从2001年开始下探至历史低点。
小林泉说，她利用从业经验丰富的优势赢得了同事的信任。"我们告诉员工眼下的精简是为了增强公司实力，推动未来增长，"她说，"然后我们不得不告诉他们这是事实。"
眼下，小林泉正在率领美林在日本市场展开较为激进的一次扩张行动。从年初以来，美林的债券部门增员25%，至65人，因她预计，债务融资将在日本公司当中变得越来越盛行。此外，公司的并购部门扩大了21%，达到103人。这项投资开始显露成效，Thomson Financial的资料显示：今年上半年末，美林的并购咨询业务跃居日本第三位，参与的交易总价值达498亿美元。
美林的U形发展和小林泉自身的职业生涯十分相似。大学毕业后，小林泉踏上了一条典型的日本女性的发展道路。她供职于一家化工公司，每天的工作无非是复印文件、给男同事沏茶而已。但是在四年之后，她厌倦了这种日子，1985年跳槽到美林。
最初，小林泉在美林的后勤部门工作，1998年升迁到业务主管，负责管理交易处理、结算和托管。两年后，她成为首席行政长。
谢企华
上海宝钢(Shanghai Baosteel)董事长
被问及私人生活时，谢企华总是委婉有加。但当话题转向她作为中国最大钢铁生产商董事长的目标时，她就直截了当起来：要使上海宝钢集团跻身全球三大钢铁生产商之列。
宝钢目前的年生产能力为2,000万吨，位居全球第六位，它正在迅速地扩大产能。这在很大程度上应归功于62岁的谢企华。她在领导这家中国大型企业集团过程中所表现出的从容和稳健使她获得了中国"铁娘子"的绰号。
宝钢是1978年由两家工厂合并后成立的，它跟随中国的发展脚步一道成长，目前已经拥有22个全资子公司（9家为海外子公司），市值达到57亿美元。
研究公司World Steel Dynamics Inc.的经营合伙人彼得o马科斯(Peter Marcus)说，宝钢成功的部分原因在于，谢企华培植的企业文化造就了众多良好的经营思想。"谢企华是一个管理权威，"他说，"她手下还有众多乐于为她工作的人"。
在中国，宝钢的足迹远远超出了它名称所体现的领域。这使得谢企华的影响力遍及众多重要行业，特别是金融业。宝钢持有中国数家大型银行的大量股份，并且一直是市场改革的创新者。比如说，中国政府千方百计提振人们对一项重要的股市改革举措的信心时，就要求公开上市的宝钢某子公司树立表率，精简所有权结构。
谢企华出生于上海，毕业于中国著名学府清华大学(Tsinghua University)土木建筑系。文化大革命的十年里，她在中国西北部陕西省的一家小型钢铁公司担任技术员。自1978年宝钢创立之日起，她就一直在宝钢工作，并一步步走上领导岗位。"我没有想到会成为一家钢铁公司的领导人，"她在今年早些时候接受采访时说。
中国开始对外开放之后，邓小平指定宝钢作为领头军，率先使用从日本进口的先进技术。如今，谢企华迫切地强调，公司使用的设备正在越来越多地本土化。
不过现在，中国钢铁行业产能的迅速扩张可能使大量中国产品涌入全球市场，导致钢铁价格下挫。
谢企华的下一个挑战：进一步提升宝钢的质量链，生产出更多高等级的产品。
