Zhang Xin on Founding and Origins

Zhang Xin — founder profiled in the Chinese Founder Ledger — is documented as follows: left Beijing for Hong Kong at 14, worked in garment and electronics factories to save for overseas study, earned a scholarship-funded education in the UK, worked in finance in Hong Kong and New York, then co-founded SOHO China with husband Pan Shiyi in 1995, building it into a major Beijing office developer before stepping down as CEO in September 2022 and shifting business activities toward the United States via Closer Media and Closer Properties. The profile is grounded in the 2 sources indexed for this founder.

Pan Shiyi married his third wife, Zhang Xin, in 1994, and the couple co-founded SOHO China in 1995 in Beijing, building it from scratch into a major office-property developer during China's real estate boom.

Co-founded SOHO China with Zhang Xin in 1995, building it into a major Beijing-focused office developer.

Zhang's Burmese-Chinese parents immigrated to China and worked as translators at the Foreign Languages Press before separating during the Cultural Revolution; Zhang moved with her mother to Hong Kong at age 15, living in a room with only two bunk beds, and worked five years in small garment and electronics factories to save enough for airfare and self-support to study in London.

At 19, Zhang saved enough to travel to the UK, worked in a fish-and-chip shop run by a Chinese couple to support herself, studied English at a secretarial school in Oxford, and took Margaret Thatcher as a personal role model before starting a career in finance in Hong Kong and New York.