Megan Shank is an editor, writer and translator living in New York City.
July 25th, 2011

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For Bloomberg.com

When serial entrepreneur George Ji Wenhong and private equity investor Huang Jin launched luxury goods and fashion clothing online retailer Xiu.com during the global recession in 2008, they relied on word-of-mouth to generate interest. “Huang was data-driven and convinced that advertising couldn’t positively impact sales, particularly in the short-run. He thought our competitors were stupid for spending so much on ads,” recalls Ji, who first met Huang when the two were roommates in college in Beijing in 1988


June 7th, 2011

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For Bloomberg.com

In December 2006, brothers John and Jim Fiocchi received an unexpected phone call from Golden Bright, their most important supplier in China. The Shenzhen plastic injection molder and assembler, which manufactured the plastic enclosures the Fiocchis’ two companies near Chicago designed and sold, had just been acquired by Highway Holdings (HIHO), a manufacturer the Chicago natives had never heard of.


March 11th, 2011

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For Bloomberg.com

Entrepreneur Earl Kluft spends a lot of time lying down on the job. As founder and chief executive officer of luxury mattress manufacturer E.S. Kluft & Company, he tests many of the $2,000 to $50,000 beds — each of which are made by hand in his Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., factory.


February 26th, 2011

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The Washington Post
Saturday, February 26, 2011; 5:06 PM

On a late-night work binge with snow blowing outside their downtown Chicago office, software engineers Matt Maloney and Mike Evans wanted nosh delivered. A stack of grease-stained to-go menus left them uninspired.


February 25th, 2011

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For Bloomberg.com

Cavorting on the beaches of Bali, touring Venetian glass factories, and wandering through New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art might seem the stuff of dream vacations. For serial entrepreneur Mike Bisceglia, it’s all in a day’s work.


February 15th, 2011

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For Bloomberg.com

About seven years ago, on a late-night work binge with snow blowing outside their downtown Chicago office, software engineers Matt Maloney and Mike Evans wanted nosh delivered, stat. Rifling through grease-stained to-go menus left them uninspired. As the two toiled at coding searches for the rental real estate site Apartments.com, for which they worked, inspiration struck. Why not apply geographic radius searches — the secret sauce that powered the rental site — to food delivery?


January 27th, 2011

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For Bloomberg.com

Liren Ji was a 22-year-old college graduate with a degree in mechanical engineering when he moved to the U.S. for advanced study in 1984, shortly after China reopened to the world. He credits his parents for his intellectual curiosity. During the Cultural Revolution, his mother and father, both engineers, were sent from Beijing to the countryside for reeducation through labor. They refused to let tough times extinguish their passion for discovery.


December 15th, 2010

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For Bloomberg.com

With a seemingly endless sea of paying subscribers — 170 million for cable television programming, 130 for broadband access, and 800 million for mobile phone services, China is the Holy Grail for broadcasters, Internet providers, and telecoms that want to sell TV, Internet, and phone in one “triple play” package. But until recently, Chinese regulators didn’t allow these companies to compete outside their own industries because of technical difficulties, content concerns, and rivalries among government agencies defending their turf. That changed last summer when the government began piloting a triple-play-friendly policy in 14 cities, a policy it plans to expand nationwide between 2013 and 2015, with the goal of encouraging high-tech industry and providing consumers competitive services.


November 30th, 2010

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For Bloomberg.com

A prospective customer enters a high-end jewelry store and sinks into a leather couch. A sales rep hands her a glass of Champagne and an iPad packed with images of jewels for her to choose from to make a custom piece. She flips through them and, with the help of a wireless connection, flicks her creation onto an iVIP, a small table fitted with a touch screen. There, she rotates or enlarges the image. As soon as she sends it to the iVIP, it also automatically emerges on a V-Cube, a triangular display device mounted at eye level next to the table. From the luxury of the couch, she watches the V-Cube rotate 3D images of her creation. Using the iPad or iVIP, she tries it on, using an avatar instead of waiting for the real piece to be crafted.


November 16th, 2010

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For Bloomberg.com

In 2009, the Chinese government pledged $125 billion toward a three-year health-care reform effort to strengthen primary care services, broaden insurance coverage, and advance affordable drugs. With its aging population and increase in lifestyle-related diseases, China’s demand for pharmaceutical drugs will increase sales 25 percent next year, to more than $50 billion, locking in its status as the third- largest pharmaceutical market in the world, according to IMS Health, an international marketing research company. IMS forecasts that China will become the No. 2 pharmaceutical market by 2015.


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