Two female executives in Shanghai have received the top Women in Leadership Achievement awards of the Economic Forum of China.

At a session in Shanghai recently, Dr Angela Lau, president for the Eastern and Southern Mainland of Nu Skin China, was named Leading Businesswoman of the Year.

Wu Fangfang, CEO and chief designer of Shanghai Greenbox Internet Technology, was named Leading Female Entrepreneur of the Year.

The WIL Economic Forum, now in its second year, promotes the economic empowerment of women and their advancement in the corporate world.

The forum connects the country’s business women with international trade officials and leaders and discusses business and trade opportunities. The forum discusses major issues facing women and how diversity and inclusion improve financial and managerial performance.

The two-day forum also honored:

Male Champion of Change: Dr Wang Huiyao, director general of the Center for China and Globalization.

Most Woman-Friendly Domestic Employer: BOC International Holdings Ltd.

Most Woman-Friendly International Employer: Ernst & Young.

Shanghai Daily spoke to Lau and Wu and heard their stories.Angela Lau

President Eastern & Southern Mainland of Nu Skin ChinaWhen Angela Lau joined Nu Skin 22 years ago, she just concentrated on work. She never thought she would rise to the top in the company, leading more than 1,000 employees on the Chinese mainland.

“I didn’t think much about it, just focused on my job. Be prepared and  opportunities will definitely come,” Lau said in an interview in her office on the 22nd floor at Shanghai’s Central Plaza.

Today the 51-year-old Hong Kong-born businesswoman is president of the Eastern and Southern Mainland region for Nu Skin China.

US-based Nu Skin is one of world’s largest and fastest growing direct sales companies, distributing anti-aging products and nutritional supplements. In 1991 it entered the Asia Pacific market in Hong Kong and in 2003 it opened retail stores in China.

China sales have expanded quickly. The Shanghai office will relocate headquarters to Fengxian District where it will build a research center.

Hong Kong-born and Canada-educated Lau was one of Nu Skin’s earliest employees in Asia. At the age of 16, Lau went to the UK for high school, then moved to Canada for college. In 1989, she returned to Hong Kong because she loved the city’s business environment.

“I’ve been growing with the company for two decades and learned a lot. It’s very satisfying,” she said. “Our mission is to change lives for the better and what I’m doing is very meaningful.”

Lau has faced many obstacles, she said, such as frequent transfers among departments and having to fit in fast to new environments.

The right attitude is essential when confronting problems, she said. “Everything has two sides and you can see it positively or negatively. It depends on your mindset.”

Her personal motto and advice for young women is “be positive.”

When she is faced with a challenge, she works out vigorously at the gym and then sits down for a good think.

“I assess the situation in which I am stuck, look at problems and identify solutions,” Lau said. “Once you list solutions, you’ll find many problems are no longer problems. Sit down, take a breath, think it through. Don’t panic.”

Lau said she never feels gender inequality in her company. “Work ability is the only criteria for a career woman, nothing else,” she said. “Women are given more opportunities today, but they still have a long way to go.”

Lau said she looks forward to work every day and naturally rises at 6am, even on Sundays. She does morning exercises or chores before getting to work at around 9:30am.

“I’m lucky because I’m doing what I like,” Lau said. “To me it’s not really work, it’s part of my life.”

She hosts charity events around China. Last month she was in Hebei Province where the company sponsored healthy meals for needy students. “I saw the children were happy, benefiting from our products. It really touched me. I know what I’m doing is helping people,” she said.

It’s not easy to balance work and family, but Lau has a supportive husband. They do not have children.

“When we were dating, I was with the company, so he knows my job very well and understand me,” she said.

“We also believe in quality of life. Though he’s in Hong Kong and I’m in Shanghai, we have great communication and leave enough space for each other. I’m so lucky.”

(Wing Tan)

Wu Fangfang

CEO and chief designer of Shanghai Greenbox Internet Technology CoChildren’s wear designer Wu Fangfang is an innovator who pushes her own ideas and says, “I hate it when people say ‘no, this won’t work’. I always think about possibilities.”

Wu, 37, is CEO and chief designer of Shanghai-based children’s wear company Greenbox Internet Technology Co.

“I have an abstract mind and I love fanciful ideas,” Wu told Shanghai Daily in an interview after winning the award for Best Female Entrepreneur 2013 from the WIL Forum China.

Born in a military family and fond of designing from an early age, Wu in 2002 joined a fashion studio started by her friends.

“I played with boys a lot and I was independent from an early age. That probably makes me strong and persistent now,” Wu said.

That experience made it easier to cope in a world largely run by men.

“Women entrepreneurs do have disadvantages in starting up,” Wu said. “You are less comfortable hanging out with men and drinking. But you grow stronger along with your business.”

Her real career started 12 years ago when she became a mother.

“When I had a daughter I found there were few high quality and distinctive domestic kids’ clothing brands,” Wu said. “I proposed to my colleagues, many of them mothers, that we could design children’s clothing by ourselves.” The idea grew into Greenbox, with more than 140 shops by 2008.

Stylish, artistic garments and ingenious features of Chinese legendary heroes made her company stand out.

Everything was moving smoothly, and then the company was hit by the global financial crisis. Sales dropped and stock piled up. Wu made a bold decision to close some department store outlets and shift to online sales.

“I had amateur experience selling products online, and the prospect of interacting directly with consumers was intriguing,” Wu said. “E-commerce offered many more opportunities and freedom to make our own products than did brick-and-mortar outlets.”

She joined the young Tmall operated by Alibaba.com, China’s largest business-to-consumer platform.

Now, Greenbox has a website and cooperates with nearly all major e-commerce platforms, such as jd.com, dangdang.com and yhd.com.

“There were quarrels with investors and offline sales agents when we restructured our business. I was struggling which way I should follow,” Wu said. “Then ... I decided to run our own brand instead of merely being a merchant of kid’s clothing.”

Wu values quality and ideas over growth and speed.

After four years’ annual growth of 300-400 percent, Wu decided to take a break to retrieve her original dream — to make China’s best children’s wear.

“When you go too fast you lose something,” Wu said. “From last year I started to see problems accumulated from years’ of fast growth.”

Fast expansion is meaningless when there are problems with quality, design and customer service, she said.

“E-commerce has gone through ups and downs because people stopped thinking when things were robust,” Wu said. “Our original dream is to make China’s best children’s wear, and I was alarmed that many new colleagues and even older ones had forgotten.”

In the past year she has improved the business and is ready to push for another round of quick growth.

The next step is exploring new online-to-offline (O2O) interaction.

“The concept of O2O is more than placing an order online and picking it up in a store, or the other way around,” Wu said. “We need to find the most convenient way for people to buy our products, whether it’s in-store, from a computer, or from mobile phones.”

Her aim is to make products available to consumers wherever they are.

(Jane Feng)