Yu Yu

Peggy Yu or Yu Yu (Chinese: 俞渝; born 1965) is a Chinese businesswoman. She is the co-founder and chairwoman of dangdang.com, the largest online book retailer in China.

Early life

Yu Yu, known as Peggy, was born in Chongqing, China in 1965. She graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University and then began working as an interpreter and secretary for a general manager of Babcock & Wilcox Beijing Company Ltd (B&WBC), one of the main boiler suppliers in the world. In 1987, she went to the United States to pursue her studies. In 1992, she earned an MBA from New York University, where she gave commencement speech on behalf of her classmates. Yu went to work on Wall Street, which she compared to a pressure cooker. Yu lived in the United States for ten years, during which time she accumulated the capital and experience necessary to become an entrepreneur. In 1996, she met Li Guoqing, a book publisher. They married after dating for three months. In 1999, the couple launched Dangdang, which has become the largest online bookstore in China.

Career

Yu is the chairwoman of Dangdang. The idea for the company came during her stay in the United States, during which time her favorite hobby after work was going to nearby bookstores. Yu had also paid careful attention to the establishment and development of Amazon.com since early 1995 when she was working on Wall Street. When she met her husband, she had the idea to start a similar online company in China. As the executive, Yu considers business issues from both an investor's and manager's perspective. Since the company's creation in 1999, Dangdang has expanded to become an online bookstore with over 6,000,000 books, as well as home goods, clothing, jewelry, cosmetics, DVDs, and movies.

On July 9, 2015, almost five years after she took Dangdang public on NYSE, Peggy Yu proposed to buy out the company from shareholders at a valuation of $630 million. Peggy Yu's proposed valuation was less than half of Dangdang's IPO valuation. The proposed buyout price, $7.81 per ADS, by Peggy Yu and her husband Guoqing Li, was the lowest among all Chinese ADRs seeking to go private, even 20% lower than the company's prior 30 days average trading price, according to Bloomberg.

Dangdang shareholders widely protested the proposed offer and launched a dedicated shareholders' activism website, dangdangfacts.com, with assertions that Yu unfairly took advantages of minority shareholders.

Personal life

In addition to being a successful businesswoman, Yu is a wife and mother. She prides herself on balancing her family life, personal life and professional life and keeping them clearly separated. She and her husband have an agreement that they do not discuss anything concerning business when they are at home or after 10 pm. Yu's personal model is her grandmother. In an interview she said of her grandmother: "Despite painful diseases she wore a smile on her face all the time, and remained calm and brave while suffering the Cultural Revolution. Her optimism and courage has a big effect on me."