Zhang Yin (entrepreneur)

Zhang Yin (born 1957), also known as Cheung Yan, is a Chinese businesswoman and one of the richest people in greater China.[2] As of 2013, she ranked as the fourth richest woman in Mainland China, and 24th richest overall, according to the Hurun Report China Rich List 2013. She is the founder and director of the family company Nine Dragons Paper Holdings Limited, a recycling company that buys scrap paper from the United States, imports it into China, and mainly turns it into cardboard for use in boxes to export Chinese goods. The company is China's biggest paper maker.

In January 2007, it was reported that Zhang was also a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a political advisory body for the Chinese government.[3]

Early life

Zhang Yin was born Zhang Xiuhua in 1957 in Shaoguan, Guangdong, with family roots in Heilongjiang. She was the eldest of eight children. She later changed her name to the more contemporary Yin.

Zhang's father, Zhang De En, was a lieutenant in the

Career

After working as a bookkeeper in a Guangdong textile factory and attending trade school for accounting, Yin moved to Shenzhen to manage the accounting and trading departments of a paper trading company at the time that the city was becoming the special economic zone and export hub it is today.

There she learned of opportunities in Hong Kong's wastepaper trade with China from a paper-mill contact in Liaoning. Zhang was encouraged to enter the sector, and in 1985, at age twenty-eight, Zhang Yin successfully opened the paper trading company Ying Gang Shen in Hong Kong[5] (a convenient source of raw materials in the form of wastepaper) using her savings of $3,800.[6]

However, paper quality for recyclable paper in China was poor, and in 1990, she moved to Los Angeles in search of better resources and founded the company America Chung Nam[5] with her second husband, Liu Ming Chung. This company has been the number one American paper exporter since 2001, and the largest overall exporter of freight to China from the United States, by volume shipped.

Zhang Yin returned to Hong Kong in 1995 to expand her business into the packaging sector and cofounded Nine Dragons Paper Holdings Limited with her husband and her younger brother Zhang Cheng Fei.

The company, headquartered in Dongguan, raised almost $500 million in an initial public offering in March 2006 at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange; by the end of 2006 the stock had nearly tripled in value. The firm invested $800 million and more than doubled production capacity by 2009, becoming Asia's first and then the world's largest maker of packaging paper. The firm entered 2011 with revenues of US$3.8 billion, 17,000 employees and the capacity to produce thirteen million tons of containerboard and packaging materials per year.[5][6]

Zhang Yin makes most of the strategic decisions, her husband is CEO, her brother handles general management. Her son Lau Chun is a nonexecutive director. The company has three general managers who are responsible for all aspects of the business; none are family members.

native name	张茵
native name lang	zh
birth name	Zhang Xiuhua
birth date	1957 (age 69)
birth place	Shaoguan, Guangdong, China
other names	Queen of Trash ‡R1R‡
title	Founder and director of Nine Dragons Paper Holdings
spouse	Liu Ming Chung (second husband)
children	2

Zhang Yin (entrepreneur)

Early life

Career

Controversy

Awards

Personal life

External links

References