Andy Li, promoted to Vice president recently of US$3.7-billion-in-sales China Agri-Industries Holdings
Andy Li, the 35-year-old head of finance for Hong Kong-based China Agri-Industries, is a perfect front man for Ethanol - renewable energy multi billion dollar business . He has taken a top job at one of the handful of state-owned companies selected to create a new industry for China. At the center of the country’s increasingly urgent push to develop sources of renewable fuel, China Agri was recently spun off from Cofco, China’s largest oils and food importer and exporter. China Agri is a food processor that has set its sights on the biofuels business, a change that involves a lot more than introducing new equipment to produce ethanol.
Since joining the company in October 2006 , Li has executed a previously developed plan to list China Agri in Hong Kong, a job he completed in March 2007 . Now he must knit together the disparate financial management and reporting systems of more than 30 subsidiaries, nurture what he calls a “capital-markets-driven” culture of transparency and corporate governance, and manage outsized investor expectations (at one point in April, China Agri’s stock price was worth 85% more than its listing price).
He is also installing a standardized ERP and database system, and is helping find a service provider to monitor and analyze the company’s operating risks. Above all, Li is a key player in China Agri’s grand plan to spearhead the mainland’s ethanol revolution, which requires financial savvy to fund refinery construction, mergers and acquisitions, research and development, and other costly initiatives. It’s worlds away from Li’s previous jobs with Hong Kong blue chips Hutchison Whampoa and Esprit Holdings. But then that’s the point. A certified public accountant and chartered financial analyst from Hong Kong, Li is transferring skills learned at venerable, established Hong Kong-based Asian multinationals and importing them into a Chinese state-owned environment desperately in need of the know-how.
In this, Li is part of a growing band of young, Western-educated Hong Kong professionals attracted by the possibilities of reinvigorating Chinese enterprises, an adventurous fraternity that currently includes Daniel Lai and Eric Leung, the CFOs respectively of Tianjin Port Development Holdings and China Gas. Typically brought in to reassure foreign investors as the mainland company seeks a listing, professionals such as Li see their role stretching beyond reporting and control to include strategy and capital markets transactions. It remains to be seen whether their enthusiasm and expertise can win over old-line subordinates, transform sclerotic financial systems, and give them a say over strategic decisions.
Jennifer Li, 40 year old CFO of Baidu, China’s top Internet search provider.
Jennifer Li previously was the North America controller of GMAC, the financing arm of General Motors. Jennifer Li has spent her whole career with GM, working in treasury in New York and Singapore before serving as CFO of GM China and later of GMAC’s North American operations.
Currently, she joins a young and vibrant company Baidu, but one with its own set of challenges. Among them: sustaining Baidu’s blistering rate of growth (second quarter, 2008 revenues were up 100 percent compared with the previous year) and managing some controversial aspects of the company’s business, including a successful MP3 search function that provides links to copyrighted music.
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