Description
How Asia's top owner-CEOs fueled the region’s rise, and what every leader around the world can learn
Shapers and Founders: The Untold Stories of Asia's Extraordinary Owner-CEOs, written by a team of McKinsey partners, reveals the leadership strategies behind Asia's highest-performing entrepreneur-led companies. Drawing on rigorous empirical research, hundreds of hours of interviews, and deep personal relationships built over decades of advisory work, the authors distill the distinctive leadership playbook that has powered Asia’s rise.
Shapers and Founders explores how, in boardrooms and backstreets alike, these founders have built national champions and global contenders, often from modest beginnings and in unforgiving markets. Through candid, in-depth conversations with founders across Mumbai, Shanghai, Tokyo, Bangkok, Singapore, Taipei and Sydney, the book articulates the six core behaviors and eighteen governing mindsets that truly sets these founders and CEOs apart.
Readers will also discover:
- Insights into Asia’s emergence as one of the world’s most dynamic regions, now accounting for the majority of global population and trade, with founder-led companies driving disproportionate value creation in the region
- One-on-one interviews with founders/CEOs of Asia's most successful businesses, revealing their own unique personal journeys and how they have shaped Asia into what it is today
- The six core behaviors of Asia’s most extraordinary owner-CEOs, offering a fresh blueprint for building enduring institutions and leading with bold ambition, resilience, and purpose in any market
- Practical leadership mindsets that professional CEOs, aspiring and existing founders, family business executives, and next generation leaders can apply within their own organizations
Written for global entrepreneurs, professional CEOs, investors, and board members who are seeking what great stewardship looks like amidst tremendous growth and change, Shapers and Founders delivers research-backed insights into the leadership behaviors and mindsets driving Asia's most value-creating companies.
Table of Contents
Introduction vii
Part I Who They Are 1
i. How Founders are Shaped by Their Environment 3
ii. The Traits That Bind Founders 29
Part II How They Operate 39
Driven by Mission 41
1 I Am a Pioneer 45
2 I Have Insatiable Hunger to Build 53
3 I Succeed If My Nation and Community Succeed 57
A Telescope in One Eye, a Microscope in the Other 67
4 I Sense Constantly and Bet on Long-Term Megatrends 71
5 I Have No Long Term Without the Short Term 77
Bold but Bounded 87
6 I Align Long-Term Risk with the Scale of Ambition 91
7 I Move Forward if I Can Live with the Worst Case 103
8 I Make My Own Luck 109
Innovate with Both a Big and a Small I 119
9 I'm Obsessed with Excellence 123
10 I Look for Opportunities to Disrupt 127
11 I Learn from the Best, but Adapt to Make It My Own 141
12 I Want Technology to Solve a Real Business Need 145
Derive Extraordinary Outcomes from Talent 153
13 I Recruit for Character and Fit 157
14 I Develop People Through Stretch Opportunities 167
15 I Take a Through-Cycle Approach to People 177
Scale Without Losing Soul 185
16 I Want to Preserve My Entrepreneurial Core 189
17 I Strive to Manage Business Transition and Family 201
18 I Build an Institution That Outlives Me 213
Epilogue 221
Acknowledgments 227
The Contributors 231
About the Authors 265
Notes 269
Index 281
