The China of the early 1980s was not a place Gong Li imagined he would re­turn to for more than a brief visit. It was emerging from the dark days of the Cultural Revolution and though Mr Li was a student at one of the country’s best universities, Shanghai’s Fudan university, he decided to grasp an opportunity to leave the country and study in the US.

After completing his studies in Houston, he joined Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) in 1985. Partners there had high hopes for him. Mr Li says: “They told me, ‘You will be ideal to go back to China. There will be a market out there, but we don’t know when.’”