From selling fish and chips to becoming a billionaire

As a teen-ager she worked in a factory in Hong Kong. Then she sold fish and chips in England. Now she's seven times richer than the Queen of England.

Zhang Xin, co-founder of one of the largest property developers in Beijing, made headlines around the world this week when she led a group of investors to pay a reported $1.4 billion for a 40 percent stake in the most expensive US building on the market, the General Motors office tower in midtown Manhattan .

Forbes ranks Zhang as the world's seventh richest self-made woman with a net worth of $3.6 billion, and the story about how she got there is a genuine rags-to-riches one.

Born in Beijing in 1965, Zhang moved to Hong Kong at the age of 14 with her mother after her parents' divorce. Zhang worked in a garment factory, saved all her money and when she turned 19, she bought a plane ticket to the UK. There she studied English at a language school, and while working part-time selling fish and chips, she completed her education by studying at the University of Sussex and eventually graduating from the University of Cambridge with a master's degree in development economics.

Following graduation, Zhang worked at Goldman Sachs Group Inc and the insurance company Travelers Group.

She returned to China in 1994 to look for investment opportunities. Zhang met Pan Shiyi, a twice-divorced businessman from Gansu, the two married and started their own real estate company, Soho China, in 1995. The company's listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in October 2007 was by far the largest commercial real estate IPO in Asia.

According to the company's website, Zhang has been responsible for the Soho project planning in China, which is "well-known for its architectural designs and commercial success."

Zhang and her husband own an apartment near Central Park in Manhattan and they live in a penthouse in the Jianwai Soho tower in central Beijing.

According to a story on The Atlantic website in March, Zhang posts daily on Sina Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, where it said she has over 5 million followers.

"Her posts range from photos of Beijing's pollution to musings on global news events, including the Newtown [Connecticut] shooting ('Honestly, can't the politicians set aside politics and ban guns? There are always mental patients in the crowd and we can't give guns to them.'), Mitt Romney (After he promised to bring jobs back to the US from China: 'Don't talk nonsense. Would Americans really do the work Chinese people do?')."

(China Daily USA 06/07/2013 page22)