The daughter also rises

　　天行健，女子以自强不息

　　Women are storming emerging-world boardrooms

　　女性席卷新兴世界的董事会

　　Aug 27th 2011 | from the print edition

　　ZHANG YIN (also known by her Cantonese name, Cheung Yan) was the eldest of eight children of a lowly Red Army officer who was imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution for “capitalist offences”. Today she is one of the world’s richest self-made women, with an estimated fortune of $1.6 billion. In the early 1980s, as a dogsbody in a paper mill, she noted that the waste paper her superiors so casually discarded was actually worth something. She has been capitalising on her insight ever since. Nine Dragons Paper, which she founded with her husband in 1995, is now one of the world’s largest paper recyclers.

　　张茵出生在一个普通的红军军官家庭，是家里八个孩子中最大的。父亲曾在文革时期因“走资本主义道路”被关进监狱。而今天拥有16亿美元资产的她却成为了世界上最富有的白手起家的女性之一。在80年代初期，张茵在一家造纸厂做杂工。在此期间她注意到工人们随便丢弃的废纸实际上还有利用价值的。从此她的洞察力给她带来了源源不断的财富。1995年张茵和丈夫一起创办的玖龙纸业，现如今已成为了世界上最大的废纸回收企业之一。

　　The emerging world is home to many businesswomen like Ms Zhang. Seven of the 14 women identified on Forbes magazine’s list of self-made billionaires are Chinese. Many firms in emerging markets do a better job of promoting women than their Western rivals, some surveys suggest. In China, 32% of senior managers are female, compared with 23% in America and 19% in Britain. In India, 11% of chief executives of large companies are female, compared with 3% of Fortune 500 bosses in America and 3% of FTSE 100 bosses in Britain. Turkey and Brazil come third and joint fourth (behind Finland and Norway) in the World Economic Forum’s ranking of countries by the proportion of CEOs who are women. In Brazil, 11% of chief executives and 30% of senior executives are women.

　　许多像张女士这样的女商人都来自新兴世界。在《福布斯》杂志亿万富豪榜中上榜的14位白手起家的女富豪中，就有7位是中国人。一些调查研究显示，在女职员晋升方面，许多来自新兴市场的公司都比来自西方的竞争对手强。在中国，32%的高级管理人员是女性，而在美国、英国这一比例分别只有23%、19%。在印度，大型公司的首席执行官中11%为女性，而美国福布斯500强老板中3%为女性，英国富时100老板中也只有3%为女性。世界经济论坛按女性CEO所占比例给各个国家排名，土耳其和巴西并列三四位（排在芬兰和挪威之后）。在巴西，女性首席执行官和女性高级主管所占比例分别为11%和30%。

　　Young, middle-class women are overtaking their male peers when it comes to education. In the United Arab Emirates 65% of university graduates are female. In Brazil and China the figures are 60% and 47% respectively. In Russia 57% of college-age women are enrolled in tertiary education; only 43% of men are. Business schools, those hothouses of capitalism, are feminising fast. Some 33% of students at the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in Shanghai and 26% at the Indian School of Business are female, a figure comparable with those of Western schools such as the Harvard Business School and INSEAD.

　　在教育方面，新一代的中产阶级女性也正在超越她们的男性同辈们。在阿拉伯联合酋长国，65%的大学毕业生是女性。在巴西和中国，该数据分别是60%和47%。在俄罗斯，57%的大学年龄女性正在接受高等教育；而男性仅有43%。资本主义的温室——各个商学院也正在迅速“女性化”。上海中欧国际工商管理学院33%的学生是女性，印度商学院26%为女性，这样的数据可与一些西方学校并驾齐驱，如哈佛商学院和欧洲工商管理学院。

　　In “Winning the War for Talent in Emerging Markets: Why Women are the Solution”, Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Ripa Rashid point out that businesswomen face steep obstacles in emerging markets. How can they stay on the fast track if, as in the UAE, they cannot travel without a male chaperone? And how can they be taken seriously if, as in Russia, the term “businesswoman” is synonymous with prostitute? In every emerging market women bear the lioness’s share of family responsibilities. In many places, deals are sealed with booze and male bonding.

　　在《赢取新兴市场中的人才：为什么女性是关键》一书中，西尔维娅.安.休利特和里帕.拉希德指出，新兴市场中的女商人面临着严峻的考验：在阿联酋，没有男人陪伴女人不能出行，这样她们怎么在职场平步青云？在俄罗斯，“女商人”就是妓女的近义词，这样她们怎么能让自己受到重视？在每一个新兴世界里，女性承担着绝大部分的家庭责任。而且在许多地方，生意场上的协议都是靠酒席和男子间的兄弟情谊达成的。

　　The workload for tiger businesswomen can be crushing. Rapid growth means exhausting change. Having customers in different time zones, as global Asian firms often do, makes it worse. More than a quarter of the female high-fliers surveyed by Ms Hewlett and Ms Rashid report working between eight and 18 hours more each week than they did three years ago. And horrible commutes are common. In IBM’s ranking of the world’s worst commutes, Beijing and Mexico City each scored 99 out of a possible 100 pain points. New Delhi, Moscow and S?o Paulo also did appallingly. Female commuters often have to put up with leering, groping men, particularly if they work late: 62% of Brazilian women say that they feel unsafe travelling to work.

　　新兴市场的女商人们承受着巨大的工作负荷。经济的快速增长意味着让人筋疲力尽的变化。拥有在不同时区内的客户则让情况更加糟糕，而在亚洲的跨国公司往往就是这样。在休利特和拉希德调查的女性“野心家”中，超过四分之一的人称她们现在比三年前每周多工作8至18个小时。并且上下班往返通常是件很烦人的事。IBM进行过一个“世界最糟糕上下班交通”排名，其中北京和墨西哥城各得99分（100分制）。新德里，莫斯科和圣保罗也“成绩斐然”。在上下班途中，女性还得常常忍受男人们调戏的目光和动作，尤其是在下班很晚的时候。62%的巴西女性称在上下班的路途中感觉不安全。

　　Still, young women have no shortage of high-profile role models, from Indra Nooyi, the Indian-born boss of PepsiCo, to Dong Mingzhu, the author of one of the bestselling business books in China. In “Regretless Pursuit”, Sister Dong, as her fans call her, recounts her rise from saleswoman to boss of Gree Electric, the country’s biggest manufacturer of air-conditioners.

　　然而，年轻女性们不乏备受瞩目的榜样们，不管是英德拉.诺伊——印度出生的百事老总，还是董明珠——一本中国畅销商业图书的作者。在《行棋无悔》中，董姐（她的粉丝这样称呼她）回顾了她从一名销售人员做起，一直做到格力电器老总的经历。格力电器是中国最大的空调生产商。

　　Living in emerging markets offers many advantages for female professionals. Most obviously, there are plenty of cheap hands to cook and take care of children. And corporate culture is changing astoundingly fast, not least because companies are hiring so many young people. (Youngsters in India and China grew up steeped in capitalism; their parents did not.)

　　生活在新兴市场为职业女性提供了很多便利之处。最明显的就是有大量廉价劳动力可以帮她们煮饭带孩子。并且企业文化也在以惊人的速度变化着，其中原因当属公司雇佣的许多年轻人。（印度和中国的年轻人都是在资本主义里泡大的；而他们的父辈们却不是。）

　　Skills shortages spur a battle for brains. In some countries, companies expect to lose a fifth of their highly skilled staff every year. So they will try anything that might help them hang on to the talent. This includes becoming more female-friendly. Many multinationals have created mentoring programmes and women’s networks. Boehringer Ingelheim, a drug company, and Citi, a bank, have introduced short-term job placements to encourage women to travel. Goldman Sachs (India) pairs expectant mothers with seasoned working mothers. Infosys, an IT firm, provides “pregnancy yoga”. Wipro, another IT company, arranges child-care camps on its campus during long holidays. GE India provides its female staff with assertiveness training.

　　技术匮乏引发了一场人才争夺战。在一些国家，很多公司每年要流失五分之一的高级技术人员。所以各个公司不惜一切代价要留住人才。这就包括变得对女性职员更加友好。许多跨国公司开发出指导项目和专属女性的网络。医药公司勃林格殷格翰和花旗银行引进短期工作替代制度，以鼓励女性职员出去旅游。高盛投资公司（印度）将怀孕职员和已做母亲的老职员搭档起来。IT公司印孚瑟斯为女职员提供“孕期瑜伽”。而另一家IT公司威普罗则在长假期间，在其场地内组织儿童护理营地。通用电气印度分公司还为女性职员提供自信训练。

　　Wise firms focus on the two biggest problems for working women in emerging markets: looking after their ageing parents, which is typically more of a problem than child care, and commuting. A growing number of companies provide flexi-time so that women can work from home. Ernst & Young holds family days to show parents what their daughters have achieved. It also offers medical cover for parents. Many companies provide their female staff with late-night shuttle buses—and female-only taxi companies are springing up in India, the UAE and Brazil.

　　聪明的公司会专注于解决新兴市场职业女性面临的最大的两个问题：一是照顾她们年迈的父母（这个问题比照顾小孩通常更加迫切），二是上下班往返。越来越多的公司为女性提供有弹性的工作时间，这样她们就可以在家工作。安永会计师事务所会举行家庭日，向父母展示他们的女儿在工作上的成就。该事务所也为职工父母提供医疗保险。许多公司为女性职员提供深夜班车。而在印度、阿联酋和巴西的市场中也涌现出了仅供女性乘坐的出租车公司。

　　A woman’s place is in the boardroom

　　女性在董事会的位置

　　All this might sound a bit namby-pamby to pioneers like Sister Dong (who says that she hasn’t had a holiday for 20 years) and Zhang Yin (who boasts that: “My success came from my character”). But namby-pambyism is a sign of progress. Heroines who build empires out of sweat and determination are rare in any culture. (As, indeed, are heroes.) Rapid growth in emerging markets is pulling more women into corporate life. And as they show their mettle, patriarchal attitudes are beginning to dissolve.

　　对于董姐和张茵这样的先锋来说，这一切也许显得婆婆妈妈。董姐说她20年没有过过一次节日；张茵则自豪地说：“我的成功源于我的性格。”但这些“婆婆妈妈”却是进步的标志。那些从汗水和决心中建立起一个帝国的女英雄们在任何一个文化中都是凤毛麟角。（当然，男英雄们也一样。）新兴市场的快速发展正促使更多的女性投入到职场生活中去。当她们显示出她们的勇气和耐力时，男权观念就会逐渐烟消云散。