The Chinese media industry is not for the faint-hearted. The combination of an explosively-growing internet and rigid censorship puts anyone working in the sector under both competitive and political pressures.

Yet Yang Lan never doubted where she wanted to be. Upon graduation from Columbia University, she rejected an offer from a US network and returned to China, where she soon had her own TV show. In 2000, she founded Sun Media Group with her husband, the Hong Kong media mogul Bruno Wu – a move that transformed China’s Oprah into its leading female media entrepreneur.