Setting the Pace with Toughness - Building Gender Balanced Business

Before Dong Mingzhu became president of Gree Electric, based in Zhuhai, China, she sold air conditioners for the company. Born to a working class family and widowed at a young age, she left her son with her mother in Nanjing and went to work in the south. She worked her way to the top and is now one of China’s most successful self-made women.

Dong is known by her competitors as being determined, even ruthless

She admits that she is uncompromising and unafraid of challenge, but Dong can also be very charming

She started at Gree as a saleswoman, eventually catching the eye of the general manager when it became apparent that her efforts accounted for 1/8 of the entire annual sales

Dong’s sales expertise, willingness to take on industry practices, and a commitment to earning trust by providing excellent customer service helped make to make both she and the company more successful

“She gives the same attention to your profit as to hers, and may refuse to collaborate if both parties aren’t benefiting.”— Zhang Tingwei, in his book “Dong Mingzhu, Marketing Queen”

Gree has 8 factories worldwide (with plans to open a U.S. plant underway), and the company’s full-year income is expected to reach 60 million renminbi

Dong has taught business classes, served as a delegate to the National People’s Congress, and she maintains senior positions in a dozen women’s, charity, and industry organizations

She feels that in order to succeed women need to compete with men head-on

“She’s pretty representative of the type of woman who succeeds in the business world in China. Feminism hasn’t really spread very far, so they have no way of being a success other than copying men.”— Feng Yuan, head of Shantou University’s Center for Women’s Studies

Her employees receive higher wages, better housing and other benefits, and longer maternity leave than standard

Though she does give Gree women better maternity benefits than most, Dong is critical of more traditional women

“Chinese women are still very traditional. Chairman Mao wanted women to hold up half the sky, but few women have changed. Most still just want to be ‘endearing little birds”.’ — Dong Mingzhu

Click here to read the full article from the New York Times, written by Didi Kirsten Tatlow