Shapers and Founders

How Asia's top owner-CEOs fueled the region’s rise, and what every leader around the world can learn

Shapers and Founders: The Untold Stories of Asia's Extraordinary Owner-CEOs, written by a team of McKinsey partners, reveals the leadership strategies behind Asia's highest-performing entrepreneur-led companies. Drawing on rigorous empirical research, hundreds of hours of interviews, and deep personal relationships built over decades of advisory work, the authors distill the distinctive leadership playbook that has powered Asia’s rise.

Shapers and Founders explores how, in boardrooms and backstreets alike, these founders have built national champions and global contenders, often from modest beginnings and in unforgiving markets. Through candid, in-depth conversations with founders across Mumbai, Shanghai, Tokyo, Bangkok, Singapore, Taipei, and Sydney, the book articulates the six core behaviours and eighteen governing mindsets that truly set these founders and CEOs apart.

Readers will also discover:

• Insights into Asia’s emergence as one of the world’s most dynamic regions, now accounting for the majority of global population and trade, with founder-led companies driving disproportionate value creation in the region
• One-on-one interviews with founders/CEOs of Asia's most successful businesses, revealing their own unique personal journeys and how they have shaped Asia into what it is today
• The six core behaviours of Asia’s most extraordinary owner-CEOs, offering a fresh blueprint for building enduring institutions and leading with bold ambition, resilience, and purpose in any market
• Practical leadership mindsets that professional CEOs, aspiring and existing founders, family business executives, and next generation leaders can apply within their own organisations

Written for global entrepreneurs, professional CEOs, investors, and board members who are seeking what great stewardship looks like amidst tremendous growth and change, Shapers and Founders delivers research-backed insights into the leadership behaviours and mindsets driving Asia's most value-creating companies.