Linda Tsao Yang: desire for changes helped Shanghai through stalemate and challenges

Linda Tsao Yang during video interview

Linda Tsao Yang, Chairwoman Emeritus of the Asian Corporate Governance Association, was born in Shanghai, China, and emmigrated to the U.S in 1946. From 1993 to 1999, she was the U.S. Ambassador and Executive Director to the Board of Directors of the Asian Development Bank in Manila. Ambassador Yang was the first woman Executive Director appointed by the United States Government to the board of a multilateral financial institution. During her tenure at ADB she made significant contribution to the environmental transformation of Suzhou Creek, a major transportation waterway running through Shanghai, by raising US$300 million in loans. She was given honorary citizenship by the Shanghai People’s Congress in 2016. She was then honored with the 2018 Leadership Award for Advancing US-China Relations in 2018. As a Chinese American, she has witnessed the changes and transformation China and Shanghai have gone through over the last 40 years. Amid the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening up, our reporter has invited Linda Tsao Yang to have a video interview and share her stories from those 40 years.

Back to hometown: Shanghai was in desperate need of opening up and development

 Linda Tsao Yang pictured at Committee of 100 Annual Conference 2018

"I am a genuine Shanghainese and was born in my grandmother's house near Suzhou Creek and had never left Shanghai before I turned 20," Linda recalled warmly. "I studied at the St. John's University (now East China University of Politics and Law) after graduation from a middle school for girls. I moved to New York in 1946 and studied at Columbia Business School after I graduated from St. John's University in 1945." At that time it might never have occured to Linda that she would live in the U.S from that point on.