Jen-Chih Huang ('Robert' )

Chief Executive Officer, Mpisi 74

South Africa has been a land of opportunity and peril for Taiwan’s Robert Huang, an essential link in a series of deals connecting Asian companies to the presidential family. He first arrived in 1992, joining the country’s large Taiwanese and Cantonese communities, which pre-date recent mainland Chinese immigration by decades. Huang chased his fortune by importing sea cucumbers from Mozambique. He then exported goods to China after it resumed trade with South Africa in 1993.

Huang’s fortunes turned in 1998 when he was convicted for the 1996 murder of Taiwanese businessman Kao Ching-ho. While in gaol, Huang struck plans for a customs clearance and freight forwarding company. Released in 2004, he formed Mpisi 74 in Johannesburg and made serious guanxi (connections) by netting Khulubuse Zuma, nephew of President Jacob Zuma, as company Chairman. (The company web site boasts, mistakenly, that Khulubuse is the President’s son.) Unwelcome attention followed Mpisi’s success and Khulubuse Zuma’s stratospheric rise after his uncle won the presidency. Chinese media, meanwhile, champion Huang’s entrepreneurial nous and gloss over the murder conviction.

Guanxi pays off. In July 2010, Mpisi struck a deal to launch Dongfeng Automobile Company, a subsidiary of state-owned manufacturer Dongfeng Motor Corporation. A dealership and an assembly plant are planned. Huang then joined the delegation that accompanied President Zuma on his 2010 state visit to China.

In January, Huang welcomed Shandong Gold Group executives to Mpisi’s headquarters. The Chinese mining group then entered talks to rescue Aurora Empowerment Systems, operators of the struggling Orkney and Grootvlei mines. Khulubuse Zuma is Aurora’s Chairman; Zondwa Mandela, Nelson Mandela’s grandson, and Michael Hulley, President Zuma’s lawyer, are also involved in the company. Shandong’s plan to buy a 65% stake in Aurora awaits the approval of Chinese regulators.