Tong Khanh Hau - The person at the bottom of society rose to become the richest "King of refreshments" in China

Tong Qinghou was born on November 16, 1945 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China. He is the founder of Wahaha Group, the group's current chairman and general manager, as well as the chairman of Zhejiang Beverage Industry Association and the chairman of Zhejiang Wahaha Intelligent Robot Co., Ltd.

In 2010, Tong Khanh Hau topped the list of China's richest people according to Hurun Report. As of May 2020, he ranked 38th on the Top 500 richest people in the world. Tong Khanh Hau had a very poor childhood. When he was only 4 years old, his family was in extreme difficulty, there were 5 siblings in the family. After moving to Hangzhou, his father fell into unemployment. The family lived on his mother's meager primary school teacher salary.

"For a long time, I often lacked food and clothing. It can be said that I rose from the bottom of society," said Mr. Tong when reminiscing about his youth. In 1963, after graduating from junior high school, Tong Khanh Hau went to a farm in Chu Son to work to ease the family's burden. In 1964, he changed his job again to work as a dispatcher at Shaoxing farm, Zhejiang.

In 1978, Tong Khanh Hau's mother retired. At the age of 33, Tong Khanh Hau returned to Hangzhou to replace his mother as a salesman in a carton factory run by Cong Nong Cong. After that, he changed jobs many times, holding different positions such as production and sales manager, salesman, distribution manager...

Until 1987, he decided to borrow $ 22,000 from relatives to buy back a small store that had previously failed. Here, he opened his first fruit and vegetable shop, also the first stepping stone for the entrepreneurial journey that followed.

Thanks to timely grasping the need to promote and develop the market economy at that time, Tong Khanh Hau quickly earned a profit of 15,991 USD in the first year. At this point, per capita income is only 1/50 of that figure.

In 1989, he founded Hangzhou Wahaha Nutrition Food Factory and held the position of Director, planning to exploit the "liquid nutrition for children" market.

Although there are 38 liquid nutrient manufacturers on the market, none are as targeted at children as Wahaha. As a result, the initial advertising campaign caught the attention of Chinese parents and created a resounding success.

In 1991, Tong Qinghou raised 236 million yuan to merge the Hangzhou Canning Factory and form the Wahaha Food Group. At this time, due to lack of experience in project management, cash flow became a problem, construction and business faced many delays for many years. He tried to switch from just selling healthy drinks to other products, but failed repeatedly.

In 1994, Wahaha entered into negotiations with Danone to receive funding. They targeted the bottled water market, the Wahaha Pure Water product was born and the company really turned it into a golden egg for a long time. It can be said that this is the most important brick for Tong Khanh Hau to build the huge business empire it is today.

Over the next 3 years, Wahaha continuously expanded by 40 companies in 22 different provincial cities, making it one of the largest beverage companies in China. During the two-and-a-half decades since its founding, his business has flourished, at a time when China has been growing at a phenomenal rate, with GDP expanding at over 10 percent a year. Mr. Tong's company, Wahaha, has attracted a large number of customers thanks to the growing wealth of the poor.

By 2011, Wahaha had revenue of 11 billion USD, accounting for the third market share of beverages in China, behind Coca-Cola and Hong Kong's Tingyi brand. As a result, in 2012, Tong Khanh Hau became a successful billionaire, a beverage tycoon and also the richest person in mainland China at the age of 67. At that time, his fortune was is valued at 20.1 billion USD by Bloomberg, the 30th richest in the world.

In 2013, he was honored as "Private entrepreneur with outstanding contribution to national industry". To achieve such results, it is impossible not to mention the dedication of Mr. Tong Khanh Hau to fulfill his responsibilities from the very first day of his start-up. His spirit of dedication to his work has become a legend.

Although he has a scale of about 30,000 employees, Mr. Tong still personally considers each periodic expense, including the benefits surrounding applying new policies, changing old habits, helping to limit waste, wiping out embezzlement and abuse of power in the corporation.

Sharing in an interview with Bloomberg, Mr. Tong said: "When I was poor, I always had to find a way to rise. Those experiences still help me a lot."

That is the reason why he always shows a hardworking and perfectionist attitude in his work. He believes that hard work is the only key to help the poor themselves get out of poverty. If you want to improve your life, you can only do your best. The only person who can help you is yourself.

Mr. Tong also applies this method in his charitable activities. He thought: "Instead of giving other people money to spend, being poor and becoming poor again, let's encourage people to work hard and do their job well. Give them a fishing rod and teach them how to fish rather than being poor," he said. give them fish."

This is the reason for the success of the man who continuously entered the Top 400 Rich List of Forbes China in 2020 with a fortune of 56.72 billion yuan. At the same time, the name Tong Khanh Hau also ranked 196th in the Top 500 Chinese brand characters in 2020.

The media once reported that, despite becoming a billionaire, Tong Khanh Hau only spends 20 USD (about 450,000 VND) a day, with just a hobby of smoking and drinking tea.

Everyone knows he is a workaholic with an anecdote that any purchase for the office, including a broom, must be submitted to him for approval.

"Mr. Tong is very frugal, three meals a day are eaten at the company cafeteria," employees at Wahaha describe their boss. Tong Khanh Hau is famous for living a very simple life, not pursuing a luxurious and extravagant style like some other billionaires.

He rarely spends a lot of money to buy clothes, thinks that using a "call-and-call" phone with a price of about 1,000 yuan (about 3.5 million dong) is fine, annual spending has never exceeded 50,000 yuan. about 179 million VND).

Tong Khanh Hau shared: "I'm used to living like this. When I was hungry, when I started doing business, I also suffered a lot of hardship. Every money I got was made by me, but I don't like spending too much."

Outside, Tong Khanh Hau is a talented investor. He can splurge on technical investments, but when it comes to spending on himself, he is extremely stingy.

He once revealed that, when he was on a business trip for a long time, he once had to buy cheap underwear in a supermarket for less than 20 yuan (about 65,000 VND). The "beverage tycoon" even joked that, even so, everyone thinks it's worth a few hundred yuan when wearing it, but he personally thinks the quality is still good.

In today's modern society, the quality of life has increased, and people's needs for enjoyment have also been greatly improved. It is normal for monthly salaried people living and working in Hangzhou to spend only 3-4 thousand yuan per month, but the richest person in China has the same spending level, which makes many people have to pay their bills. amazing.

His thrifty spirit was praised by many. It is even said that, when caught on the street, it is difficult to recognize Tong Khanh Hau as a businessman worth tens of billions. The most expensive thing on his body was only a watch.

"Running outside all day, wearing a jacket is the most comfortable," explains President Wahaha, explaining his habit of always wearing only a jacket.

The billionaire himself and close people all know that the only hobbies of Mr. Tong Khanh Hau's daily life are drinking tea and smoking. He admitted that he did not know how to spend money, nor did he have time to defecate. "My quality of life is not as good as that of my employees," President Wahaha laughed and commented to himself.

When other giants choose to travel by private plane or first-class seats, Tong Khanh Hau still prefers a second-class seat on high-speed rail. Even the essential daily items, he also used for decades before replacing.

A subordinate who has followed him for many years shared with reporters that Tong Khanh Hau does not like to party, sometimes he even eats with ordinary employees at the company canteen. He himself once refused party invitations from the British Prime Minister and Queen of England, because in his opinion, such parties were too lavish and flashy.

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