The Next Big Things

Millennial investor, entrepreneur and philanthropist Wendy Yu introduces the new class of Yu Prize 2022 winners and redefines what it means to be “made in China”

- Cherry Mui

Fashion has always been the starting point of everything I’ve done [in my career]—it has an incredible power to inspire, ignite passion and imagination, and that was certainly the case for me from an early age,” says Wendy Yu, often referred to as China’s fairy godmother of fashion. Yu is the daughter of Jingyuan Yu, who founded Mengtian Group, the largest wooden door manufacturer in the country, but she has made a name for herself as a fashion power player and mentor.

Yu has worn several hats since founding investment funding company Yu Capital in 2015, which became Yu Holdings in 2017. “I was not immediately chasing the numbers as most financiers do; I was more interested in long-term impact and the wider vision,” she says of the businesses her company has backed. She is a long-time supporter of the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute and Met Gala, and her investment portfolio so far includes Greek British designer Mary Katrantzou, Samantha Cameron’s womenswear label Cefinn and shopping app Fashion Concierge (now part of Farfetch), as well as technology giants DiDi, the Uber of China, and Tujia, the country’s Airbnb equivalent.