SOHO中国(Soho China)首席执行官张欣, 无拘无束, 轻松坐在她公司总部的CEO办公室里，爽朗地笑着。她办公室的格调与装饰, 弥漫者艺术气息，空气中是杯中桂花茶清淡的甜味。SOHO中国是中国最大的商业地产开发商之一，总部坐落在北京中央商务区的朝外SOHO。

房内气氛宁静，窗外的景象却截然不同——楼下繁杂的朝外大街上，穿梭来往的行人步履匆匆。

坐在我对面的张欣，已不是我们初识时的模样——那是上世纪90年代初，当时我们都是留学英国的中国研究生。我给她带去一张老照片，是我当年在伦敦的中国经济年会上拍的。泛黄的照片上，她穿着一件绿色羊毛衫，坐在观众席里专注地聆听着。（前座的那位，是现任北京大学光华经济学院院长的张维迎教授）。二十年后，张欣已成为世人瞩目的焦点人物。作为中国的一位商界精英，也名列全球最富有的群体（净资产估计超过了30亿美元）。

现年44岁的张欣，在中国企业领袖中一直显得特立独行。过去30年，中国的经济增长，令人叹为观止，引发了一场影响深远的经济和社会变革，但同时也造就了一代体力精力严重透支的商界精英。2008年，中国一个企业家协会的调查显示，没完没了的会议、出差和应酬宴请，让中国四分之一的企业高管患上了高血压，90%抱怨工作负担与压力过重。

"晚上，他们大多时候不在家，见到自己妻儿的时间也很少。"张欣说。"外国人通常觉得我们中国人更看重家庭，观念更传统。而眼下的情形并非如此。其实，中国人的家庭观念正变得越来越淡薄，甚至有些混乱。"

有鉴于此，5年前她定了一条新的家规：尽力回避绝大多数与工作相关的聚会、会议及商务社交活动。她唯一固定出席的是一年一度在瑞士达沃斯的世界经济论坛(WEF)。今年，她甚至开始用网上的新玩艺"微博"（中国版本的Twitter）来发布最新消息。通常情况下，张欣和她47岁的丈夫、SOHO中国的董事长潘石屹将晚上和周末都留给了两个儿子。

这种家庭生活第一的姿态，与这对"明星"夫妇的名声形成了强烈反差。与中国许多企业家不同，张欣、潘石屹两人过去一向行事高调，在中国一些时尚杂志公开自己的个人生活，且是公认的社交界常客。他们的行事风格助长了这样一种说法，他们有意满足广大中国同胞的渴望，凸现光彩照人的生活方式，并以此宣传自己的公司品牌。

如今，这对家喻户晓的夫妇似乎已有足够资本减少个人品牌的包装。2007年，SOHO中国在香港证交所上市，成为亚洲规模最大的商业地产发行，共募资19亿美元，目前该公司市值为200亿港元（合26亿美元）。

他们于1994年成婚。1995年，潘石屹用之前与别人合创一家房地产公司赚到的钱，与张欣共创SOHO中国。受日本房地产业发展的启示，他们看到了SOHO式（即家庭办公室）住宅的巨大市场空间，专门满足疾速膨胀的中国中产阶级的需要。他们针对这部分新顾客群，建造由西方设计师设计的公寓，风格简约、时尚。这种白墙、原色木地板的内部装饰，与竞争对手昏暗、空荡荡的毛坯房形成了鲜明的对比。。

2006年，为了遏制不断上涨的房价，中国政府开始对高端住宅采取限制措施，SOHO中国随之转向开发办公及零售房地产。

尽管如此，成功并非一帆风顺。2008年股市动荡时期，SOHO中国的股价遭受重创，一度跌至2.04港元。同年年底，随着中国政府推出价值4万亿元人民币（合5860亿美元）的大规模财政刺激计划，房地产业——连同SOHO中国的股价——得以起死回生。

不过，张欣表示，政府的财政刺激措施威胁到了房地产行业的存续。几个月前，她警告称，政府正在制造房地产泡沫。"只有当人们确实希望使用买下的住宅空间时，房地产价格才应上涨，但目前我们可以看到全国以及所有房地产领域越来越多的空置建筑物。房价不断上涨是银行放贷过多的直接结果，中国各银行应对此感到非常担忧。"

她的大胆言论令很多房地产开发商的同行感到吃惊。许多人打来电话，询问自己是否应该将房产脱手。

张欣对政府政策做出的反应，也有助于解释私人企业在这个共产党执政的中国所受到的限制。例如，谈到公司战略，张欣表示自己可作的选择很有限。"战略？恐怕我们没有什么战略。我们只知道必须对政府的措施作出回应，"她解释道。

"如果中国政府采取宽松的货币政策，房地产市场就会出现泡沫。当人们热衷于买房时，不修建或销售新房是不现实的。只要人们想买房子，我就会继续盖房子。毕竟，我个人的力量与政府的力量相比是微不足道的。"

不过，张欣承认，像她这样的房地产开发商对泡沫也负有一定责任。她表示，中国房地产的问题之一是许多地产开发商大量屯地，只是为了高价出售。"许多中国上市公司的市值都基于土地储备的价值，（因此）地产公司花如此大的精力集中在囤地上，也就不足为奇。在有些公司，只有一小部分土地真正用作开发建设——土地储备的作用是推高股价。"

在公开场合，她如此直言不讳，是一个富有勇气的举动。她说，她必须强调政府政策对中国房地产业的危害，才能问心无愧。

人们很容易将张欣的这番道德高论不当回事儿，认为这只是她塑造个人品牌的一个新伎俩，是为了和以贪婪和牟取暴利而臭名昭著的房地产业保持距离。不过，张欣的言论有其精神信念上的基础。张欣于2005年皈依了巴哈伊教(Bahai)。

那么，她管理企业的方式有没有受到新信仰的影响？

"对巴哈伊教的信仰让我脱胎换骨，"张欣承认。"没有（它），我可能会不惜代价地盲目追求利润。但现在我会做出选择。例如，我不打算在澳门投资赌场，尽管这样做利润丰厚。我早已经过了盲目追求增长和利润的阶段。"

和中国许多富裕的商界领袖一样，张欣也开始将注意力放在慈善事业上。她慈善工作的重点是帮助甘肃省贫困边远地区的穷苦儿童，甘肃是她丈夫的故乡。

某种程度上，这也是张欣对自己"文革"期间艰辛童年生活的致意。她的父母都在中国政府部门做翻译，并在那场政治动乱中离了婚。1980年邓小平重新对外开放中国经济后，她的母亲带着她去了香港。她们几乎身无分文。随后，14岁的张欣在一家服装厂找到一份工作。

1987年，学了几年秘书课程后，张欣获得一笔奖学金，前往英国萨塞克斯大学(University of Sussex)学习经济学，随后又在剑桥大学(Cambridge)攻读发展经济学，张欣的第一份工作是在华尔街投行高盛(Goldman Sachs)当一名年轻分析员。

尽管事业有成，但张欣教育自己的孩子不要忘本。"我最近给自己买了一部iPhone，孩子们立刻就开始问我为什么需要新手机，因为它太贵了。"

当全家人一起去北京当地的一个市场购物时，孩子们会让父亲潘石屹坐在车里等着。

"他在中国太容易被认出来，这会让孩子们与小贩之间的讨价还价更加困难，"她笑着说道。

（本文是英文采访的中文译稿，并略作补充。阅读英文原稿。作者张力奋，FT中文网总编辑。近期正休假，任香港浸会大学新闻系客座教授。）

译者/何黎

The woman helping to build the new China

By Lifen Zhang

Published: February 7 2010 23:02 | Last updated: February 7 2010 23:02

Zhang Xin, chief executive of Soho China

Zhang Xin cuts a relaxed figure. Smiling broadly, the chief executive of Soho China, one of China's biggest commercial property developers, takes a seat in her art deco-style office in Soho Tower, the company's headquarters; the air is infused with the sweet scent of the osmanthus flower in her herbal tea.

But the tranquil atmosphere inside is very different to the one viewed from her windows – down on the streets of Chaowai, Beijing's central business district, people rush around at a frenetic pace.

The woman sitting across from me is also very different to the one I first met when we were both Chinese research students in London in the early 1990s. I show her a picture I took at a London conference on the Chinese economy. It shows her wearing a green woolly jumper sitting in the audience, listening intently. Now, as a member of China's business elite and one of the wealthiest individuals in the world, with a net worth estimated at more than $3bn (€2.2bn, £1.9bn), she is centre stage.

The CV

Born
1965, Beijing.

Education
Attended seven elementary schools in China. Bachelor of Arts in Economics, Sussex University. Master of Arts in Development Economics, Cambridge University.

Career
Labourer at a garment factory and electronics plant in Hong Kong from age 14. Analyst at Goldman Sachs and Travelers Group respectively in 1993-95. Returned to Beijing to start Soho China with husband Pan Shiyi in 1995.

Interests
Reading, collecting art and walking.

The 44-year-old's serenity is unusual among corporate leaders in China. While the past three decades of spectacular economic growth have produced profound economic and social change in the country, it has also spawned a generation of business executives who are, quite simply, exhausted. A 2008 survey by a Chinese entrepreneurs association showed the endless conveyor belt of meetings, work trips and dinners had left one in four Chinese executives with hypertension, while 90 per cent complained of excessive workloads.

"They are out most nights. They don't see much of their wives and kids," says Ms Zhang. "Foreigners often think we Chinese are more traditional when it comes to family values. These days we are not. In fact, family values in China are getting increasingly weak and a bit chaotic."

With this in mind she set a new rule for her family five years ago, to eschew most work-related parties, conferences and business functions. The only big event she attends regularly is the World Economic Forum at Davos. This year, she even used Wei-Bo, a mini-blogging site that is a sort of Chinese version of Twitter, to post updates. But normally, Ms Zhang and her 47-year-old husband Pan Shiyi, the company's chairman, devote their evenings and weekends to their two sons.

Such domesticity is in marked contrast to the pair's reputation as an "it couple". Unlike many other Chinese entrepreneurs, the two have courted publicity, opening their lives to China's glossy magazines and establishing themselves as regular fixtures on the party circuit. They encouraged the idea that they embodied the glamorous lifestyle to which many of their countrymen aspire in a deliberate ploy to market their company.

Now household names, the pair, who have been married since 1994, can afford to ease off their personal branding drive. The company, which was floated in 2007 on the Hong Kong Stock exchange in Asia's biggest commercial real estate offering and raised $1.9bn, has a market capitalisation of HK$20bn ($2.6bn, €1.9bn, £1.6bn).

The couple started Soho China in 1995, with money Mr Pan made as co-founder of a previous property business. Inspired by Japanese development, they saw a gap in the market for Soho-style housing projects (small office, small home) catering to China's rapidly burgeoning middle class. They targeted this new customer by creating apartments with a simple, modern aesthetic designed by western architects. Their white-wall and blond-wood-floored housing was a very different proposition to their competitors' dark, empty concrete shells.

In 2006, following the imposition of restrictions on high-end housing as the government tried to control rising house prices, Soho China switched to office and retail developments.

Still, it has not been a story of uninterrupted success. In the stock market turbulence of 2008, the company's shares took a battering – falling to as low as HK$2.04. After the government announced a huge fiscal stimulus package worth Rmb4,000bn ($586bn, €423bn, £365bn) at the end of that year, the property sector – and Soho China's share price – revived.

Yet Ms Zhang says the government's fiscal stimulus poses a threat to the viability of the sector. A few months ago, she warned that the government was creating a property bubble. "Real estate prices should only go up because people want to actually use the space, but at the moment we can see more and more empty buildings across the whole country and in every real estate segment," she said. "The rising prices are a direct result of so much money coming from the banks and the Chinese banks should be very worried."

Her comments alarmed fellow real estate developers, as many Chinese people called to ask if they should sell their properties.

But her reaction to government policy also helps to explain how private business is constrained in the communist country. When it comes to strategy, for example, Ms Zhang suggests that her options are limited. "Strategy? I am afraid we don't have a strategy and we only know we must respond to government's initiatives," she explains.

"If the Chinese government adopts a loose monetary policy, there will be bubbles in the property market. When people are keen to buy properties, it would be unrealistic not to build or sell new properties. As long as people want to buy houses, I will continue building them. After all, my personal power is nothing compared with the power of the state."

Still, Ms Zhang admits that property developers such as her bear some responsibility for the bubble. One of the problems in China, she says, is that so many property developers have bought up swaths of land with the sole intention of selling at a profit. "Many publicly listed Chinese companies' value is based on the value of the land bank, [so] it is not surprising property companies are focusing so much of their energy on land hoarding," she says. "For some, only a fraction of the land [will] be used for actual construction – the land bank serves the purpose of driving up the stock price."

Her decision to speak out publicly in such forthright terms was a bold one but she says she owed it to her "conscience" to highlight the dangers of government policy.

It would be tempting to dismiss Ms Zhang's comments on morality as a new chapter in her personal branding drive – a way of distancing herself from an industry that has a reputation for greed and profiteering. Yet there is also a spiritual foundation to her comments. In 2005, she converted to the Bahai faith.

Has her new-found faith influenced the way she runs the business?

"Being a Bahai has transformed me," she admits. "Without [it] I would have blindly pursued profits at any cost. But now I will make choices. For example, I am not prepared to invest in casinos in Macau even if it makes huge returns. I've long passed that stage of blindly pursuing growth and profits.''

Like many wealthy Chinese business leaders, Ms Zhang has also started to devote attention to philanthropy. She has focused her charitable work on helping poor children in the remote and impoverished Gansu province, where her husband is from.

In some ways, it is also a nod to Ms Zhang's own difficult childhood during the Cultural Revolution. Her parents, both government translators, were separated during the political chaos and in 1980, when Deng Xiaoping reopened China's economy to the outside world, her mother took her to Hong Kong. They were almost penniless and Ms Zhang got a job, aged 14, at a garment factory.

In 1987, following a few years of secretarial studies, she was awarded a scholarship to study economics at the University of Sussex and then studied development economics at Cambridge before landing her first job as a young analyst at Goldman Sachs on Wall Street.

In spite of this success, she says her children have a grounding influence. "I recently bought myself an iPhone and the kids immediately started to question why I needed this new gadget since it is so expensive," she says.

In fact, when the family goes shopping at a local market in Beijing, the children ask their father to wait in the car.

"His face is too recognisable in China, which would make kids' bargaining with vendors doubly difficult," she laughs.

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