The story of Jack Ma is wonderfully inspiring. Ma, 43, founder and CEO of e-commerce giant, Alibaba.com, China’s largest business-to-business website, is packed with energy and has an eagle eye for business opportunities. Brought up in the industrial city of Hangzhou, a couple of hours drive south of Shanghai, Ma had already set himself apart from his peers by the age of 12. It was then that his interest in learning English motivated him to take what can only be described as exceptional action for one so young: Ma offered free tours to western tourists - just so that he could practice his English. This was no mean feat as it meant cycling a considerable distance to and from the hotel where Ma picked up his tourists each day. Even then, Ma’s characteristic drive and determination was phenomenal; in fact, Ma continued with this rigorous routine until he was 20.

Perhaps it was this exposure to foreign cultures at such a formative stage in his life that shaped his global vision. It was this global vision, together with his sharp talent for recognizing market potential that led Ma to found “China pages”, after his very first encounter with the Internet in 1995, when he spotted that Chinese manufacturers were not on the Internet. China Pages was one of China’s first Internet companies and was largely instrumental putting Chinese businesses on the global map. Since then, Ma, widely regarded as a Pioneer of the Internet in China, carried on to establish Alibaba.com, and Taobao.com – which competes with eBay in China.

Whilst Ma’s wealth and power are quite phenomenal, it is actually his ethos, which is most impressive, and a part of that ethos is even reflected in his choice of the name ‘Alibaba’. The allusion to the ‘Tales of Arabian Nights’ is clear – and not to the forty thieves, of course, but rather to “open sesame” – the password that opened the treasure- trove to the outside world.