Forbes Asia

an amazing 20-year journey

Will Adamopoulos with Li Ka-shing and Steve ForbesCarlos SlimRobert KuokOprah Winfrey and Warren BuffettBill Gates and Masayoshi SonIt was 20 years ago this month that the Forbes family asked me to set up a regional headquarters for Asia. As I handed out my new business card to Asian business leaders, their response was often one of friendly curiosity–was Forbes a magazine or a list? Were there still hot-air balloon and motorcycle tours, and would the Highlander yacht return to Asian ports of call? Most of all, could they meet the Forbes family?Given this unique family heritage and a century of celebrating entrepreneurial capitalism, we focused our editorial and business model on the business families that drive Asia’s economies. We held the first Forbes Global CEO Conference, launched the Asia rich…

change and continuity

This first issue of 2019 signals more than the start of a new year, it represents the start of a new team and structure for Forbes Asia. For the first time, Forbes Asia’s content creation team will be predominantly located in Asia, and the content creation process will be fully integrated across platforms such as print, digital, social, lists and events.The main goal of this new, localized and integrated approach will be to provide even greater value to the worldwide Forbes community, especially those in Asia. This content creation will be carried out by a talented multinational staff in the Singapore and Hong Kong offices, as well as by our far-flung editorial bureaus, contributors and researchers across the region.As we begin this new chapter, hats off to former editor Tim…

the euro how to make it great

THIS YEAR MARKS the 20th anniversary of the euro’s introduction, and not many champagne bottles have been uncorked in celebration. Since 2008, the EU has been beset by economic crises that have dulled any luster the new currency had.Too bad. Had Europeans understood the proper principles of monetary policy, the euro would be a resounding success, doing for participating EU countries just what the dollar has done for the U.S.—a common currency that enormously facilitates prosperity-creating investment and commerce. But this extraordinary creation has been bedeviled by profound misunderstandings that could ultimately threaten its very existence.Many critics moan that the euro has prevented Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland and others from using devaluations to help their economies recover from terrible contractions. Still others carp that the euro enabled Germany to rack…

furnishing trade

FORBES ASIA: What kind of opportunities do you see these days?KATHWARI: We have maintained a balanced approach. In the last 15 or 20 years, 70% of all manufacturing left the U.S. and went to China. Many of our competitors went to China and elsewhere. But we wanted to stay in our North Atlantic zone. So, we went to Mexico and bought a small plant. We’ve taken this 40,000 square foot plant and 90 people to 600,000 square feet with over a thousand people. So, we have over a thousand people and they do really an amazing job. That has also helped us ship products to China.Why manufacture in the U.S. and Mexico and ship to China, rather than manufacture and sell in China?We used to buy leather upholstery from China…

youtube’s top 10

BRAND PARTNERSHIPS, a clothing line, millions of fans: What was once solely the province of athletes and A-listers now includes “Markiplier,” one of the world’s highest-earning YouTubers, who hauled in $17.5 million over our 12-month scoring period.The Hawaii native (real name: Mark Fischbach) launched his YouTube channel in 2012 when he was a biomedical-engineering student at the University of Cincinnati. He was going through tough times: He’d broken up with his girlfriend, been laid off from his desk job and had an adrenal-gland tumor removed that surgeons found when they went to take out his appendix.“A whole bunch of things happened that made me feel like I didn’t have any control in my life, so I had to do something,” says Fischbach, 29, who now lives in Los Angeles. At…

18-wheelers at app speed

The odd couple of freight brokerage: Transfix cofounders Drew McElroy, a trucking industry veteran, and Jonathan Salama, a Parisian tech whiz, in a Freightliner truck. (HARRY FELLOWS FOR FORBES)At 12, Drew McElroy was in trucking. His parents ran a freight brokerage operation out of a spare bedroom in Milltown, New Jersey—connecting truck owners to companies that needed to move goods—and he helped out by working the phones.Fifteen years later, a light bulb went off. Weren’t truck brokers doing the same thing that Uber and Lyft do? They match rides to vehicles, minimizing wasted miles, and use algorithms to set prices based on supply and demand. “I realized, Holy crap, no one is doing this,” McElroy says. “There is a clear path to changing this entire industry that isn’t that complicated.”It…