We Need to Be Innovating Every Day’

Amway China’s chairwoman, Eva Cheng, started at the company as a secretary in the Hong Kong office in 1977 and now oversees the company’s operations in Greater China and Southeast Asia, which was reportedly responsible for more than one third of its $8.4 billion in 2009 revenue. A decade ago direct marketing was banned in China for seven years, severely affecting Amway’s ability to operate in the country. NEWSWEEK’s Isaac Stone Fish talked to Cheng about the business climate in China today, the best way to deal with Beijing, and the role of women in China’s corporate culture. Excerpts:

There’s been a lot of press lately about China not being an easy place to work for foreign companies. How does Amway feel about the current business climate in China?

Even though it’s modern, dynamic, very developed in many respects, China as a whole is still a developing country; it has never really been a very easy place to do business.