Yang Yuanqing - Lenovo

Lenovo

In 1989, Yang joined Legend, as Lenovo was then known, as a salesman. Yang moved up the ranks quickly. Yang travelled to meet distributors throughout China and used his technical knowledge to help build an outstanding sales record. This caught the attention of Liu Chuanzhi, who promoted Yang to head Lenovo's personal computer business at just 29 years old. Yang was elevated to CEO of the whole company when Liu retired in 2001. Liu described Yang as "A man who moves forward, takes risks and aims to innovate."

Yang's first task at Lenovo was to write a bid to become IBM's local agent for selling personal computers. After submitting his bid, Yang discovered that he had quoted twice the price of his competitors. Within a year of joining Lenovo in 1988, Yang had lost interest in sales and had taken the TOEFL in preparation to study overseas. Yang stayed on after repeated requests from Liu Chuanzhi.

Yang Yuanqing was chairman of Lenovo's board from 2004 to 2008. In February 2009,Yang re-assumed the position of CEO at Lenovo. One of his major achievements has been making Lenovo the best-selling PC brand in China since 1997. In 2001, Business Week named him as one of the rising stars in Asia.

While Lenovo's official language is English, Yang initially did not understand the language well, but relocated his family to Morrisville in order to improve his language skills and soak up American culture. One American Lenovo executive interviewed by The Economist praised Yang for his efforts to make Lenovo a friendly place for foreigners to work. He said that Yang had created a "performance culture" instead of the traditional Chinese work style of "waiting to see what the emperor wants."

In 2012, Yang received a $3 million dollar bonus as a reward for record profits, which he in-turn redistributed to about 10,000 of Lenovo's employees. According to Lenovo spokesman, Jeffrey Shafer, Yang felt that it would be the right thing to, “redirect to the employees as a real tangible gesture for what they done.” The bonuses were mostly distributed among staff working in positions such as production and reception who received an average of 2,000 yuan or about US$314. This was almost equivalent to a month's pay for the typical Lenovo worker in China.

Shafer also said that Yang, who owns about eight percent of Lenovo's stock, "felt that he was rewarded well simply as the owner of the company.”According to Lenovo's annual report, Yang earned $14 million, including $5.2 million in bonuses, during the fiscal year that ended in March 2012.