In the 1960s, Lee was one of the few people in her village to make it to university. Frustrated by the lack of decent career opportunities available to her after graduation, she started her own export company in 1974. Today, the 69-year-old is chairperson of household products trader and retailer Test Rite International Co. Listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, the firm employs about 6,000 people at home and abroad.
“You can’t choose your origins, but you can change your destiny. I’m from a humble family and grew up in a military dependents’ village in [southern Taiwan’s] Tainan City. My father was an army officer and my mother had only two years of elementary school education. I’m one of five children, which goes some way to explaining why my family was so poor. I knew I needed to study and work hard to create a better future for myself.
Not many people in my village had been to college. When I was accepted into Tamkang University in Taipei County [now New Taipei City], my parents had to ask around to borrow money for my tuition fees. In the end, a friend of my father who delivered newspapers loaned us the cash.
I never expected to end up with my own company. I majored in insurance and banking at Tamkang and I was planning to work in a state-owned bank after graduation. I wanted a decent, stable job, something that we used to call a ‘golden rice bowl.’ But in the end, I failed to qualify because at the time there was a rule that you needed to offer property that could act as a kind of guarantee to the bank, which I couldn’t do.
I worked for a number of different companies in the early 1970s. In my first job, I started off serving tea, and then later became a salesperson. The firm began to grow, mostly because of my hard work, but one day I came in to the office to find my desk and chair had been taken away. I think I was concentrating so hard on making money that I forgot about the need to be mindful of cultivating interpersonal relationships in the workplace. Also, the company no longer needed me because I’d already helped it develop and so they asked me to leave. If that hadn’t happened, I might have stayed there for a long time.
(Photo by Chin Hung-hao)
In 1974, I opened my own business exporting hand tools and other hardware items with just five staffers. In a few years, we became Test Rite International, employing more than 20 workers including my husband [now president of the enterprise].
I took the company into retail in 1996 when we partnered with British [home improvement] giant Kingfisher to introduce their brand B&Q to Taiwan. My company is now sole owner of the hardware chain in the country. I’m not greedy, so I haven’t expanded into manufacturing. I’ve developed the company steadily. I think it’s crucial to stay focused if you want your firm to be successful.
I demand quite a lot of myself. I always used to look stern and I felt I had to be strong and tough. We have a tradition in Taiwan for new mothers to stay at home for a whole month after childbirth, but I only rested for a few days before going back to work after each of my three children was born. But I don’t like it when people say I’m an ‘alpha female.’ It makes me sound mean. I’m approaching my 70s now and I’ve learned how to relax and take things less seriously.
As a woman, you have to know how to survive in this business world dominated by men. In the early days, many of my suppliers were these down-to-earth guys who wanted to talk shop in night clubs. At the end of the evening, when the men got too drunk, I’d call their wives to come and pick them up.
It’s not easy for women pursuing a career because they also need to take care of their family at the same time. And they are my first love. If you can organize your time properly and focus, it’s possible to juggle the two. When my children were small, I’d use any spare time I had at work to call home and talk to them. I only ever really cared that they turned out to be good people. My three daughters haven’t failed me in that regard. They’ve also all finished higher education at prestigious universities.
I have four grandchildren now, but I’m still busy dealing with the never-ending challenges that arise as my company grows. I’m currently handling the fallout from the trade war between the U.S. and China. We’re trying to focus on building ties with suppliers in Southeast Asia. As for retail, we’re moving into online sales because we’ve been heavily impacted by the rise of e-commerce. In Taiwan, we recorded annual growth of 40 percent in online sales in 2018, so I can see that our efforts are really bearing fruit.”
—interview by Oscar Chung
Write to Oscar Chung at mhchung@mofa.gov.tw