At weekly brainstorming strategy meetings, the biggest and most ambitious ideas always come from Tsai, he said.
In recent years, Tsai has folded most of his shoe business into Yue Yuen and steered Pou Chen into the high-tech industry, producing PC components, motherboards and integrated circuit (IC) design. Tsai has also invested in a bank in China.
While critics say Pou Chen is late in entering the electronics sector, Tsai pays them no heed. Many had labelled the shoe business as a sunset industry before Pou Chen turned it around, he said in a rare interview with the local Win-Win Weekly (
"Pou Chen cannot depend only on Yue Yuen for growth, so we have to plan technology investments one by one, wait for them to be profitable for six months before absorbing them into Pou Chen," the magazine quoted Tsai as saying in late November.
Pou Chen's first-quarter profit nearly tripled to NT$3.18 billion (US$92 million), even as the economy struggles to recover from its worst ever recession in 2001.
Tsai's personal assistant, Alvin Hu, credits his boss' success to a modest style, mild manner and willingness to swallow unfavorable terms when negotiating with new business partners.
"He told me once: Only people with big stomachs have good fortunes," said Hu, quoting a common Taiwanese saying.
RSS