Yu Minhong attributes his decision to abandon a teaching career and go into business partly to his wife’s intense nagging.
“Some of my friends were making more money and my wife wanted me to be more successful. She felt that, compared with them, I was a loser,” he says with characteristic candour.
Mr Yu rose to the challenge, founding New Oriental and turning it into China’s biggest private education company, with English-language schools and other learning centres in 34 cities.
In the latest financial year, more than 1m students enrolled, boosting New Oriental’s revenues by 36 per cent to more than Rmb1bn ($136m).