Mimi Tang

Few know how to drive luxury brands towards unimagined growth better than Mimi Tang. She joined the Gucci Group (later Kering) in 1988, the height of fashion’s golden age, as president for China and Hong Kong. Under Tang’s visionary leadership, brands such as Alexander McQueen, Saint Laurent, Gucci and Bottega Veneta saw regional growth that accounted for 25 percent of the group’s annual sales. After stepping down from Kering, she founded the Wing’s Share consultancy, which provides training for luxury-brand executives in customer service, management, leadership and merchandising in the Greater China region. Tang is also an avid philanthropist, regularly organising drawing and dancing classes for the disabled at Wing’s Share’s Studio and, most recently, holding a charity exhibition in which she showcased some of her own paintings. Tang’s vision of what it takes to succeed draws on years of leadership experience. “This is an era of digitalisation, curiosity, ambition and equality,” she says. “For years, surviving as a successful female leader wasnoeasyjobforme,yetIdidit through determination, assertiveness, breaking-through and empathy. Always wow your customers and make everything beyond expectations.”