The New Breed

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When the pressure of running the world's biggest television maker weighs heavily on Li Dongsheng's shoulders, he reflects on his years in the muck. During China's Cultural Revolution, when Chairman Mao Zedong ordered high school graduates to learn from the peasantry, Li spent three years raising fish and rice. Today his company, TCL, based not far from the old commune in Guangdong province, is looking far beyond the paddies. The goal: to transform TCL into a worldwide household name. "When I hit problems along the way," says Li, 47, "I think, This is nothing like what I faced down on the farm."

Li's success at TCL has mirrored China's rise. After economic reforms took hold about 1980, Li noticed the popularity of imported tape recorders. With government investment, he helped form what he says was China's first cassette-tape company. As incomes rose, telephones caught on, and Li's company became China's biggest phonemaker. Black-and-white TVs came next, in 1981; color in 1992. Today TCL is China's second biggest producer of mobile phones, and Li wants to become No. 1 in air conditioners. But competition remains fierce among Chinese electronics firms. To stay ahead, Li last year paid $560 million for control of the TV arm of the French consumer-products giant Thomson, which owned the RCA brand. The next step won't be easy. Thomson's TV operations lost $130 million last year, and Li acknowledges that RCA is known as "the TV that old people watch." In the third quarter of this year, TCL's profits dipped 69%. Li hopes he can inject some Chinese go-getter spirit into the Thomson business. "They think 5% growth a year is great, and we think it's miserable," the CEO says. "We're used to growing at 40%." Li will need all the patience he learned feeding fish in the commune's paddies. --By Matthew Forney/Beijing

Sam Jonah
ANGLOGOLD ASHANTI

Sam Jonah has been a global citizen since he left his native Ghana in his early 20s to study mining in Wales and then work in the mines in Australia. As head of Ashanti Goldfields, the gregarious Jonah helped steer Ghana's biggest company through the rocky waters of international expansion, spreading Ashanti's businesses across Africa. In 1996 Ashanti became the first African operating company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. This year, it finalized its sale to South African behemoth AngloGold to create the world's second biggest gold miner, AngloGold Ashanti. There have been setbacks: in 1999 Ashanti almost went under after a disastrous hedging decision made on Jonah's watch. As president and possibly the next CEO of AngloGold Ashanti, Jonah, Africa's most influential black miner, believes that African companies and governments must be held to international standards but that the southern hemisphere often gets the raw end of trade deals. "Globalization can bring tremendous benefits to Africa," says Jonah. "But there is no level playing field." --By Simon Robinson/Johannesburg

Vivek Paul
WIPRO TECHNOLOGIES

By age 38, Vivek Paul had already seen his American Dream come true. He arrived in the U.S. from India as an M.B.A. student in 1980, worked hard, married, started a family and rose to a top job at GE, having been recruited by Jack Welch himself. Then, in 1999, Azim Premji, chairman of Wipro, an Indian conglomerate, called him back to India. He asked Paul, a former water-polo captain, to take over his software unit, Wipro Technologies. "He said, 'You can build another skyscraper in New York,'" Paul says, "'or you can build a completely new thing in India.'" Paul took the challenge. He transformed Wipro Technologies from a $150 million software developer into a $1 billion force in offshore outsourcing, handling IT and customer service for companies ranging from Delta Air Lines to Best Buy. But in order for Wipro to join the ranks of giants like IBM, Paul says he has to change his employees' attitudes. "Indians are seen as great individual contributors, not great managers," he says. To turn his army of techies into sophisticated global consultants, he is investing in training in such "soft skills" as talking to clients. With his home in the U.S. and his work in India, Paul has a dual take on the furor over outsourcing. He champions India's software industry but also supports a better safety net for displaced workers in the U.S. "My kids are growing up here," he says. "It's as important for me to do well in my business as it is to make sure that they grow up with a healthy economic outlook." His American Dream, it turns out, isn't quite complete. --By Jyoti Thottam/New York

Judy Mcgrath
MTV NETWORKS

In the more than two decades that she has spent helping build a fledgling music-video channel into one of the most powerful global media brands, Judy McGrath, 51, has always stayed in touch with what she likes to call her "inner teen." Now that she has taken over the reins at all of parent company Viacom's vast, fast-growing cable operations, including MTV, MTV2, VH-1, CMT, Nickelodeon, TV Land and Comedy Central, you might think she would need to get more in tune with her outer adult. But being responsible for the crown jewel of Sumner Redstone's empire — generating nearly $3 billion in profits this year alone and reaching 400 million viewers in 164 countries — has done little to dull McGrath's rebellious spirit or passion for "driving creativity," as she puts it. Even with a husband and 10-year-old daughter at home, you can find this self-described "music junkie" at the occasional late-night club gig. These days, McGrath is spending lots of time overseas too, where she is intent on expanding Nickelodeon's presence and developing more original programming for MTV, including the soon-to-debut MTV Base in Africa. Back home, a year after Janet Jackson's MTV-produced Super Bowl half-time striptease, McGrath may again be a lightning rod with the February launch of her newest U.S. channel, Logo, a 24/7 network for gays and lesbians. Not surprisingly, controversy doesn't particularly concern her. Instead, says the Scranton, Pa., native, who started at MTV in 1981 as an on-air promotions copywriter, "I am always worried about missing a cultural beat." --By Daniel Eisenberg/New York