Page 36 - Forbes - Asia (October 2019)

ASIA’S POWER BUSINESSWOMEN

NGUYEN THI
ANNA FANG, 37
CEO, ZhenFund PHUONG THAO, 49
CHINA Founder and CEO, Vietjet Aviation
VIETNAM
When it comes to early-stage
venture capital in China, it’s See profile on page 26.
difficult to overestimate the influ-
ence of Fang, CEO of Chinese VC
firm ZhenFund. ZhenFund has
backed more than 700 startups,
including unicorns such as AI firm
Yitu Technology, online educa-
tion company VIPKid and social
e-commerce app Xiaohongshu.
A graduate of both Columbia
University and Stanford Univer-
sity, Fang started her career in
New York at JPMorgan as an
investment banker to consumer
and retail companies. Her success in overseeing one of China’s largest early-stage funds
also earned her a spot on this year’s Forbes Midas List, where she joins Sequoia Capital
China’s Neil Shen, Benchmark’s Bill Gurley and ZhenFund founder Bob Xu as one the
world’s most successful venture capitalists. —Yue Wang

ROONGCHAT

BOONYARAT, 34
CEO, Malee Group
THAILAND

Roongchat started working in
2011 at her family’s fruit juice
and canned fruit company and
in 2016 was appointed chief DIAN SISWARINI, 51
operating officer. Last year, she President Director, XL Axiata
took over as CEO from her father INDONESIA
Chatchai during a challenging
year for Malee: with demand for Siswarini is the first woman to run a big publicly
fruit juice falling and the baht listed Indonesian telecommunications company,
rising, the 41-year-old listed XL Axiata, a role she obtained in 2015 after 20
company reported its first loss years of climbing the ladder in a male-dominated
in a decade. Since she joined the industry. One of her earliest steps required liter- FANG: JUSTIN CHIN/BLOOMBERG, ROONGCHAT: COURTESY OF MALEE, SISWARINI: COURTESY OF XL AXIATA
business, Roongchat has worked ally climbing cell towers up to 50m high while
to increase the company’s of- working as a network engineer. She then worked
ferings, venturing into cold- on expanding her skill set, mastering how to man-
pressed juice, hair and beauty age a digital business. She calls her strategy 3R:
products, and toothpaste. She revamping, rise and reinvent XL Axiata’s core busi-
also cemented joint ventures that ness. Under Siswarini’s leadership, XL Axiata sold
took Malee into new markets in noncore telco units, and offered wider access and
Indonesia and the Philippines. affordable data services, thereby increasing its
Malee also paid $11 million for a market share to almost 18% last year, from 10% in
majority stake in Vietnam’s Long 2016 and boosting Ebitda 5% to $601 million over
Quan Safe Food, which is slated the same period. The mother of three says educa-
to almost double Malee’s produc- tion policies should change to encourage more
tion capacity. —Suzanne Nam women to pursue tech careers. —Pudji Lestari

Planning for your today
and your family’s tomorrow

Issued by HSBC Holdings plc on behalf of HSBC group members. Private banking is carried out internationally by different HSBC group members in accordance with local regulatory requirements, and in the US by HSBC Bank USA N.A. – Member FDIC. See website for further details.