Xie Qihua

Xie Qihua ( Chinese  谢 企 华 ; born 1943 in Shanghai ) is a Chinese manager and until 2007 managing director of the Chinese steel company Baosteel . Under her leadership, Baosteel became the largest steel producer in China and one of the largest in the world. She belonged to a group of very few female top managers in China and because of her importance she was nicknamed "Iron Lady", "Woman of Steel" or "Steel Queen". In November 2005, Xie Qihua was ranked 14th of the 100 World's Most Powerful Woman of the business magazine Forbes ranked.

life and work

Xie completed her engineering degree from Tsinghua University in Beijing , where she graduated in 1978. She worked at Shaanxi Steel and in 1978 moved to Baoshan Iron and Steel Corporation, later Baosteel . Here she first headed the technology department and then rose to management in several positions. From 1994 to 1998 she was Deputy Managing Director of Baoshan Iron and Steel Corporation and she held this position after the Baosteel Group was founded in 1998 to 2003. Since 2000 she was also Chairman of the Board of Directors and in 2003 she became Chairman of the Board of Directors and Managing Director of the group . In the same year she was awarded the national prize for business woman of the year by the Chinese government. She was politically active as an advisory member of the 15th and 16th Central Committees of the Communist Party of China from 1997 to 2007.

Under the leadership of Xie, Baosteel was built out of the Baoshan Iron and Steel Corporation in a merger with other Chinese steel companies such as the Shanghai Metallurgical Holding Group Corporation and the Shanghai Meishan Group and was thus able to survive the Asian crisis at the end of the 1990s relatively well. In 2001, Baosteel formed a strategic alliance with the Capital Iron and Steel Company and the Wuhan Iron and Steel Company, making it the twelfth largest steel producer in the world with more than 10 million tons of steel production per year. In 2004, Baosteel signed an agreement with Arcelor and the Brazilian mining company Companhia Vale do Rio Doce to jointly build a steel production facility in Brazil. With 8 billion US dollars in financing, it was China's largest direct overseas investment to date and at the same time the start of international activities for the Chinese steel industry. Over the years, the Group's steel production has tripled to 22 million tons with sales of more than US $ 22 billion. Under her leadership, Baosteel became the fifth largest steel company in the world. At the same time, the workforce was reduced from 196,000 to around 90,000. and Baosteel became the largest producer of auto steel sheet in the world.

At the beginning of 2007, Xie Qihua handed over the management of Baosteel to her successor, Xu Leijiang , who had previously managed the subsidiary Baoshan Iron and Steel. Shortly after her resignation, she was hired to head the British Standard Chartered Bank to help set up a newly established branch in China.

Awards (selection)

• National award for business woman of the year 2003
• # 14 in The World's 100 Most Powerful Women , Forbes 2005

supporting documents

1. ^ ^{A b c d} “Xie Qihua.” In: Wenxian Zhang, Ilan Alon: Biographical Dictionary of New Chinese Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009; P. 206. ( Google Books ).
2. ↑ ^{a b} Georg Blume: Comrade Manager. Emma 4/2005, emma.de July 1, 2005; accessed on December 12, 2019.
3. ↑ Xie Qihua at chinavitae.com, accessed December 12, 2019.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Shu-Ching Jean Chen: China's Iron Lady Stepping Down. forbes.com, Jan 16, 2007; accessed on December 12, 2019.
5. ↑ ^{a b c} "Iron Lady" formed steel giants: Baosteel boss Xie Qihua surprisingly resigns. Handelsblatt , January 18, 2007; accessed on December 12, 2019.
6. ↑ Standard Chartered Hires Xie Qihua. In: The Wall Street Journal April 5, 2007; accessed on December 12, 2019.
7. ↑ # 14: Xie Qihua on forbes.com, November 2005; accessed on December 12, 2019.

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Chinese. Xie is the family name here, Qihua is the first name.