Ms. Zhang Xin,
CEO, Co-founder
Soho China

Zhang Xin was one of the first private entrepreneurs to engage in commercial real estate development in China. She has led SOHO China, the company she co-founded in 1995 with her husband Pan Shiyi, in becoming the largest-scale developer in Beijing’s city center, conceptualizing each project and striking a successful balance between architectural aesthetics and commercial viability. Holding a Master′s degree in Development Economics from Cambridge University, Zhang Xin is a member and Young Global Leader of World Economic Forum, a trustee of China Institute in America, and a member of Asia Business Council.

Zhang Xin has won many prestigious international awards for her role as a patron of China′s most visionary architecture and as an innovative entrepreneur. In 2008, she was named among the top 100 of the World’s Most Powerful Women by Forbes magazine and, in 2007, she was selected as one of the “Ten Women to Watch in Asia” by the Wall Street Journal. She won BusinessWeek′s Stars of Asia Award for the year of 2004 and was awarded a Special Prize at the 8th la Biennale di Venezia. She also received the Montblanc Arts Patronage Award for 2004. Among the accomplishments of which she is most proud is the establishment with Pan Shiyi of SOHO China Foundation http://www.sohochinafoundation.org/, a charitable organization with the mission of advancing education as a means for alleviating poverty. She has been one of the strong supporters of the Virtues in Us program from its start. Soho foundation has funded the implementation of this systematic character education program in more than 40 schools in Tian Shui county in Gansu, benefiting close to 20,000 children and their families.