Jack Perkowski

Jack Perkowski

Chairman and CEO, ASIMCO

Jack Perkowski is the chairman and chief executive officer of ASIMCO Technologies, one of the most important players in China's automotive components industry. He founded the company in February 1994, after spending three years investigating opportunities in Asia and China and before others recognized the significant role that China would play in the global economy. With seventeen factories in eight provinces and fifty-two sales offices located in every corner of the country, ASIMCO Technologies is unique because it functions as a foreign-invested company built to specifically to serve the Chinese market. Under Perkowski's leadership, ASIMCO has gained a reputation for developing local management and integrating a broad-based China operation into the global economy. In 2005, ASIMCO was named one of the "Ten Best Employers in China," ranking third in a survey conducted by Hewitt Associates and 21st-Century Business Herald.

Jack’s new book Managing the Dragon: How I’m Building a Billion Dollar Business in China (Crown Business; March 18, 2008) discusses Jack’s experiences building ASIMCO from the ground up and the lessons he learned in developing the company’s local management team. The book also covers a wide range of topics such as decentralization; China’s different cost perspective and how it creates two markets for any product; intellectual property concerns; and practical advice on how to start a business in the country.

3 min
Despite Beijing’s apparent officiousness, control of China is not centralized.
4 min
This is China’s 30th year of reform. There are visible signs of wealth all over the country. Everyone is feeling optimistic. Everyone is focusing on education.
7 min
“Mr China” explains how things are never what they seem in Chinese business.
2 min
“Everybody in China is actually from Missouri,” says Jack Perkowski. They are hard workers; they are skeptical of optimistic outsiders, but they respect success.
4 min
In the beginning, Perkowski found “New China Managers.” Now he has the luxury of pulling from his own pool of talented employees.
3 min
From his perch on Wall Street, Jack Perkowski foresaw the emergence of long-term trends that drew him to China. Now others try to follow his example.