Tan Ruisong: AviChina Industry & Technology Company Limited President

Large corporations are headed by people who are good in management and business. A purely technical expert without leadership skills will not be able to get the job done. Many executives do possess technical skills and expertise and while climbing the corporate ladder also learn and display the leadership and business skills needed.

Tan Ruisong is both a leader and a person with technical expertise. He is the vice chairman of the Board and president of AviChina Industry & Technology Company Limited otherwise known as AviChina. Tan is a researcher level senior engineer. In 1983 he graduated from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics with a bachelor’s degree majoring in manufacture and designs of engines. Tan earned his master degree in shipping and ocean engineering and Ph.D. degree in management science and engineering from Harbin Engineering University in 2002 and 2006, respectively.

He began his career in the aviation industry in July 1983 and was previously deputy chief engineer and deputy general manager of Harbin Dongan Engine Manufacturing Company. He has held various positions in the said company.

AviChina was established in Beijing, China on April 30, 2003 and has been listed on the main board of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong since October 2003. It is one of the largest companies in the world and produces helicopters, trainers, general-purpose aircraft, and related products. 

Ma Mingzhe: Chinese Insurance Figure

Ma Mingzhe was born in 1955 and hails from China. He has been the Chairman of Ping An Insurance (Group) Co. of China Ltd. since April 1994 and its Chief Executive Officer since April 2001. Ma has held a number of positions in Ping An Insurance Company since its establishment in 1988.  One of the positions has been as President.

Ma has served as the Deputy Manager of China Merchants Shekou Industrial Zone Social Insurance Company.  He serves as an Executive Director at Ping An Insurance (Group) Co. of China, Ltd. He also serves as Member of the National Standing Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

Ma has basically spent his entire career in the insurance industry. A hard working individual, it was he who opened the doors of Ping An to foreign investors such as HSBC, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs.  He is also pioneering since Ping An was one of the earliest companies to launch a successful float on a huge scale in Hong Kong.

Ma holds a Doctorate degree in Money and Banking from Zhongnan University of Economics and Law.

Zhao Jianguo: Energy Man

It’s just sometime where we are born and the company that employs us which spells the difference whether we are well-known to the general public or not. People and companies in the Western World have a much freer press which reports on just about everything. This includes business and executive personalities.

So it’s not surprising that very few people in the Western World have not heard of Zhao Jianguo. He is the chairman of China Southern Power Grid (CSG).  To head this company involves a lot of responsibilities and skills and just mere connections will not do it. You have to be at the top of your game.

The area that CSG covers is a staggering 1 million square kilometers which has a population of 230 million.  If you think about it most of the countries in the entire world don’t have that kind of population. While the company Zhao runs covers 5 provinces it’s almost like running the energy needs of three or more countries.

China has greatly progressed over the decades and has a more sophisticated electricity sector.  CSG uses a variety of power resources including coal-fire, hydro power, oil/gas-turbine and wind power. The total installed capacity reached 188GW by the end of 2011.  One can just imagine the magnitude of what Zhao’s company deals with in term of electricity; the 220kV-and-above transmission line was 90,000 km in the aggregate.

CSG has actually one of the most sophisticated and technically advanced power grids in the world. It has long-distance, large capacity, ultra-high voltage and hybrid operation of AC DC. The company specifically operates in Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou and Hainan provinces and regions. This puts CSG in a good location being adjacent to Hong Kong, Macau, and bordering Vietnam, the Laos and Cambodia. It has existing and planned projects with these entities/ countries.

Ranked as the 152th largest company in the world by Fortune magazine in 2012 with revenues of $60.5 billion and assets of $83 billion, Zhou heads a company whose performance not only affects China but many Southeast Asian countries as well. A huge responsibility and so far he has been up to the task.

  

Yusuf Alireza: Running Noble

Yusuf Alireza is the CEO and Executive Director of Noble Group. He is a company outsider having been the co-president of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s Asia –excluding-Japan unit and a member of the firm’s Global Management Committee prior to joining Noble. Alireza is one of the exceptional few who have a joint undergraduate and graduate degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

He began work at Goldman in New York in 1992. Then Alireza moved to London in 1997 where he rose through the ranks eventually becoming Head of EMEA sales and structuring efforts. His move to Asia happened in 2008 when he was assigned to Hong Kong to head the Asia Pacific securities division of Goldman.

Alireza was appointed to his current role on April 2012. The Noble Group is the biggest listed commodity traders by sales in Asia which is based in Hong Kong and listed in the Singapore exchange. It even had bigger sales than Marubeni Corporation of Japan and other commodity trading firms there which are centuries old as against Noble which is not even a thirty year old firm.

His coming into the company is to set things right. Noble posted first quarterly loss in almost 14 years in November 2011 due to the slump in its cotton and carbon-trading businesses. It also experienced a string of resignations from top executives including the previous CEO.

Alireza has at his hands a company that is one of the largest in the world. With assets and resources available he brings sophistication in the areas of finance and risk management that will hopefully set the course for Noble to be a centuries old company itself like its Japanese rivals.