Dong Mingzhu

Self-made and tough-as-nails, Dong has run Gree, a $22.5 billion air conditioning company—China’s largest—since 2001. During her 14-year tenure, the company’s stock has risen 2,300% and Dong has become a legend in China. She grew up in a working class family, became a lab technician and, when her husband died decades ago, a young widow. She then began selling air conditioners at Gree, and soon rose through the company (a journey she detailed in her autobiography Regretless Pursuit). Now among China’s most prominent business leaders, she is leading Gree on a much watched foray into her country’s smartphone market. —Erika Fry