Who is Ma Yun's most admired woman?

Recently, according to Fortune Chinese website, the data released recently by research company Equilar showed that CEO meg whitman of Hewlett-Packard Company ranked sixth in the top 1 top paid CEOs in the United States in 216. Among the top ten CEOs, four are women, compared with two in 215. In the 216 Forbes list of the most influential women in the world, meg whitman was also on the list, ranking ninth.

As one of the most influential female managers in the world, meg whitman is a well-known heroine among women. She has a brilliant resume: she led ebay to 5 times the number of employees and 2, times the assets in 1 years; She has won the title of "strong woman" in American business and is known as "godmother of global e-commerce"; She is a mixture of housewives and leaders. On the one hand, Whitman, who loves her family, likes to travel online and live in cheap houses. At the same time, she is ambitious and planned to replace Schwarzenegger and run for governor of California. After that, the "iron lady" in the business world took on the mission of reviving HP's former glory and wrote another volume of her legend in the business world.

The Road to Advancement

On August 4th, 1956, Whitman was born in Cold Spring Harbor, new york City. Among her predecessors, there are many celebrities, including US Senator Charles B. Farwell, famous historian and jurist MunroeSmith, famous American general Henry S. Huidekoper and economist Wayne Chatfield-Taylor.

Perhaps he inherited excellent genes. Whitman has been very smart since he was a child, and he has achieved excellent results. During her study in Cold Spring Harbor High School, she was always in the top ten in her class. After graduating in 1974, she successfully entered Princeton University. Whitman, who was originally determined to become a doctor, chose to study science.

However, after Whitman spent a summer trying to sell advertisements for a magazine, she became interested in economics and began to study economics. In 1977, she obtained a bachelor's degree with honors.

After becoming attached to economics, Whitman obtained an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1979. In the same year, Whitman found his first job as a brand manager in Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.

After accumulating some work experience, Whitman entered the San Francisco branch of Bain Company, a global management consulting company, as a business consultant.

Because of Whitman's excellent work performance, she has been promoted all the way and obtained the position of senior vice president.

In p>1989, Whitman became the vice president of strategic planning of Disney Company. Two years later, Whitman joined Qianjin Footwear, the largest casual sports shoes and children's shoes sales company in the United States. In 1995, Whitman became the CEO of FTD, a global flower delivery company, and made it a world-famous brand.

Whitman reached the first peak in his life while working for Hasbro. At that time, Whitman was the general manager of Playskool in Hasbro. She was not only responsible for managing Hasbro's global market, but also responsible for the operation of two children's brands, Mr. Potato Head, since January 1997, which was a great success.

"godmother of e-commerce"

The name meg whitman was well known to Americans after she became the president of eBay.

in November p>1997, when the headhunter found Whitman for eBay, she was also the head of preschool children's department at Hasbro Toys Company with annual sales of $6 million. At that time, she was the mother of two boys, and her career was on the rise. eBay, a Silicon Valley internet company, was unheard of for her.

However, this headhunter is a legend in Silicon Valley, david belle, and his second call convinced Whitman. In 1998, Whitman finally decided to leave Hasbro and join the then unknown eBay.

"What's really interesting about p>“eBay is that we provide the market and let users run the company. They bring their products online, they trade online and organize their own delivery after selling. " Whitman said. Although the founder of eBay was pierre omidyar, it was Whitman who really developed eBay into a global shopping and auction network platform.

Whitman had prepared herself psychologically before going to work, but when she came to eBay, she realized that the problem was far more serious than she thought. EBay at that time was actually a simple black-and-white website, and the font used on it was even Courier font designed by IBM in the 195s. On her first day at work, eBay went down eight times.

In the eyes of new colleagues, this gentle blonde who used to be an executive in Disney and Procter & Gamble is as shy as a child, but just another lucky "office girl". Although Whitman was also disappointed, she started to set up a new operation team. She first divided eBay's business into 23 major business categories, including about 35, sub-categories. Then she assigns these 23 business categories to each company executive for operation.

Whitman obviously has something extraordinary. Before she took charge of eBay, fly fishing was her greatest hobby. This 7-year hobby seems to be similar to her role in eBay. In "fly fishing", it is very important to throw the pole accurately, and as the head of eBay, it is equally important to make every correct decision.

Less than six months after Whitman took over, eBay's shares were successfully listed. The stock price rose rapidly. Overnight, 75 employees of eBay75 became millionaires, and Whitman's net worth exceeded $1 billion, ranking among the top 14 self-made women in the world listed by Forbes.

An ancient Greek poet famously said, "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows a great thing." People familiar with Whitman say that she has both "fox" and "hedgehog" personality, which is the gene of her success.

One night in p>1999, eBay's website suddenly went out of power, crashed, and the transactions of millions of customers were interrupted. The accident lasted for 22 hours, resulting in nearly $4 million in business losses. EBay shares depreciated by 5 billion yuan and were regarded as junk stocks throughout the summer. Faced with the avalanche of criticism from investors and eBay users, Whitman is in danger, and like a hedgehog, she wants to dig out the problem from the root. She quickly repaired the platform temporarily and reopened it. After that, she almost lived in the office for a whole month, thinking about upgrading computer technology all day.

in p>2, eBay's operating income was only $431 million. Whitman made a "written pledge" at the board meeting. In five years, eBay's operating income will reach $3 billion, which even Cook, her diehard ally on the board, thinks is simply impossible.

in p>24, eBay's performance report came out, and its operating income reached $3.2 billion. Whitman proved his prestige with his actions and attracted the attention of Wall Street investors. Antonio, the chief analyst of Goldman Sachs, once said: "Of all the companies I have paid attention to, only Meg's eBay can achieve its own goals every time without exception."

Subsequently, Whitman made key adjustments to the management of eBay. She put Jeff Gordon in charge of PayPal, Matt Bannick in charge of the company's international business department, and BillCobb in charge of the American business. Later, Whitman appointed john donahoe as the president of eBay's trading market, responsible for all the businesses related to eBay's global e-commerce. It is based on this adjustment that eBay has been revitalized and grown rapidly. By 28, eBay had 15, employees and its annual revenue reached $8 billion.

when Whitman joined, eBay was just a small company with 5 people. Ten years later, it became a multinational giant with 15, employees and an annual turnover of $8.5 billion. Whitman himself has also won the reputation of "godmother of e-commerce" and "queen of online flea market".

In May, 25, meg whitman, together with other famous executives of Silicon Valley enterprises (including Yang Zhiyuan), went to Beijing to attend the Fortune Global Forum. There, she met Ma Yun and Cai Chongxin, and the two sides had some in-depth talks, including eBay's investment intention in Taobao, but no results were achieved. Ma Yun said that meg whitman, the global president of eBay, is one of the five CEOs he respects most. "Meg is a first-class CEO and I am a first-class teacher." This evaluation was made after Ma Yun and meg whitman met.

in March, 25, Forbes published an article "Taobao retaliates against eBay", saying that Taobao, managed by Alibaba CEO Jack Ma, and Alibaba, the world's largest B2B website, are waiting for opportunities to go abroad and expand overseas markets. And think that if Ma Yun has his way of development, it will not be eBay but Taobao that will eventually occupy the global online auction market. "Elephant" refers to eBay. From the moment Ma Yun began to plan Taobao, he has been paying close attention to the dynamics and strategies of eBay. Meg whitman has always regarded the China market as the focus of eBay. She realized the potential of the Internet market in China a long time ago.

Ma Yun smells an upcoming battle for the e-commerce market. In 22, Alibaba began to prepare to enter the consumer-oriented e-commerce market in China. As Ma Yun later explained, this was originally a defensive measure to deal with eBay's entry into China: "I need to protect Alibaba by stopping eBay." For the consumer e-commerce website established this time, Ma Yun is aiming at a more heavyweight opponent: eBay, which is regarded as a landmark enterprise in Silicon Valley, and its CEO meg whitman.

At that time, Ma Yun was worried that the activity of some large merchants on eBay would erode Alibaba's territory: "At that time, only two companies in China understood the online market, eBay and Alibaba. I am particularly worried that eBay's powerful sellers will develop and finally compete with Alibaba within the scope of B2B business. " Ma Yun set a grand goal for Alibaba, which also changed his perspective: "eBay wants to buy the China market, and we want to create an Internet trading market in China."

after a series of considerations and layout battles, Taobao was officially launched on May 1th, 23. With the full support of Alibaba, Taobao began to fight against eBay. Ma Yun hopes that Taobao will continue to maintain a flexible and innovative start-up culture, which is partly related to eBay's efforts to seize the opportunity to monopolize the market.

By the end of 25, eBay's market share had suffered a "waterloo", which had slipped to only one third, while Taobao was close to 6%. Before, they talked to investors about the bright future of China's business development, but now their difficulties in the China market are beginning to drag down the stock price. At the beginning of 26, their stock price dropped rapidly from a high of more than 46 dollars, and only 24 dollars remained in August. In this regard, Ma Yun said mercilessly: "They have finished in China ... They made too many mistakes in China-we are lucky."

eight years later, when meg whitman, the new CEO of HP, faced the fiasco with Taobao in the past, he still deeply regretted some mistakes made by eBay in China: "You must have a set of products designed specifically for the China market. You can't apply products or systems suitable for Europe and the United States to the China market. "

In 25, Ma Yun told Forbes magazine with such a metaphor: "eBay may be a shark in the sea, but I am an alligator in the Yangtze River. If I fight at sea, I will lose; If you get into the river, it will lose. "

Save Hewlett-Packard

After retiring from eBay, Whitman spent a lot of money running for governor of California, but failed.

three years after she officially left eBay, in September 21, she started the third drama of her life-serving as CEO of HP to save the once-declining Silicon Valley giant.

"We are in a critical period, and we need to innovate our leadership ability to better implement the company's future development policy. Whitman is a visionary leader with a successful past in business management. More importantly, Meg has been a director of HP for eight months, so we believe that she already has enough knowledge of the company's business. " When announcing Whitman's appointment, Ray Lane, former executive chairman of HP's board of directors, said.

Whitman joined HP as a reformer. In order to fully stimulate the team spirit, she drove the executives out of the private office and let them work in the cubicle; She formulated a new product strategy, emphasizing elements such as software, design and customers. After a series of business integration and sales model changes, HP, which was once demoralized, has obviously revived.

"can she save HP? No, because she faces the worst board of directors in history. " After Whitman took office, HP once again encountered fierce criticism from the outside world. From the outside world, Whitman's advantage as CEO of HP is that she is a member of the board of directors and has close ties with Ray Lane, the chairman. Moreover, Whitman also acquired Kleiner Perkins Caufield &; Byers, Ryan was one of its managing partners.

"Because HP has experienced so many things, it has been very difficult for me to manage this company, but I have been persistent. As you all know, you get up every morning and have been working hard ever since. You won the hearts of HP, and you restored the confidence of consumers and partners. Although the process has been difficult, it is satisfactory. I have to say that this is very easy compared with running for governor. " Whitman said.

in the year before she took power, HP's share price plummeted by 42%, and its main competitor Dell expanded its territory in the server market. In several confrontations, HP was almost powerless to stop it. In April 212, two rivals competed for a $35 million server order from Microsoft's Bing search engine team, and finally Dell won. Minutes after the results came out, Whitman called Microsoft CEO steve ballmer: "Tell me, what did we do badly?". Don't perfunctory me. I really want to know so that we can do better next time. " Soon, Microsoft sent Whitman a multi-page memo listing HP's lost machine.