In the new dawn of successful tech businesspeople, my favourite, is Ma Yun or Jack Ma as he is know to the Western world.
He was nicknamed Jack because one of his first entrepreneurial ventures as a child was to practice English daily so he would ride 40 mins to the Hangzhou hotel and converse with English speakers and offer them free tours to improve his language skills.
Like most entrepreneurs he struggled with the an education system and it took him 4 years to pass the tough Chinese system but tenacity paid off and he completed in the end.
Then he got rejected for 23 jobs and by Harvard 10 times. In 1994 he discovered the internet. He created the first website for China 'China Yellow pages' and made money. He registered Ali Baba in 1999 as Ma had a vision.
The internet was the future of commerce. Ma wanted to improve the global e-commerce system and from 2003 he founded Taobao Marketplace, Alipay, Ali Mama and Lynx.
He received huge funding and in 2016 Alibaba was named the world's biggest retailer over Walmart.
I admire Jack Ma because his tenacity, his foresight,his instinct and boldness and his inspirational goal to make China a global leader on the e-commerce stage. Which it certainly is. Who are your business heroes and why do admire them?