Women to Watch 2021: Amber Chen, DuoZhun

Amber Chen

CEO
DuoZhun, an Ascential Company
China

Amber Chen has led DuoZhun’s (DZ) transformation from a struggling software-as-a-service platform into a rapidly growing independent software vendor that provides ecommerce solutions to brands in China. Under her leadership DZ’s revenue jumped eight-fold between 2018 and 2020, and the company, headquartered a few minutes walk from Alibaba’s Xixi Park in Hangzhou, has grown from 20 people in 2017 to more than 150 today. DZ achieved 52% annual revenue growth in the first half of 2021, and the firm’s solutions now drive ecommerce growth for more than 100 international brands across 15 industries.

Chen is on this list not just because she has led a robust business recast, but also for how she continues to drive growth. She has driven the expansion of DZ’s business transformation and consulting solutions, integrating ecommerce and consumer data to help brands to identify growth opportunities, target the right audiences, and invest in media efficiently and cost-effectively. Chen has also achieved all this with a young team—average age of 26.7 years—and built out a strong learning and mentorship network to guide them.

In order to help her team reach their full potential, Chen has developed comprehensive training programs for DZ’s employees, including working skills (critical thinking, time management, energy focus), professional skills (motoring system, newbies camp) and management skills (project management, mentorship and leadership training). Every new employee is assigned a mentor and Amber regularly coaches members of the company’s management team. For internal training and to quickly raise staff capability levels, members of different teams with special expertise regularly conduct streaming events to the whole company, with an average of three such events per month.

Prior to joining DZ, Chen was a business director of Sohu and Duomeng, and led teams providing services for major global brands including P&G, Unilever, Yili, L’Oréal and Dell.