Beijing's 20 Most Interesting People: Pan Shiyi

We have a saying here at the Beijinger that even if nothing interesting could be written about 99 percent of Beijing's approximately 20 million people, there would still be 200,000 great stories remaining. To us, what makes a person interesting was not only their long-term presence in Beijing, but that they had done something of note within the last 12 months. Here is one of our picks, and you can always find more in our October issue, now out on the stands.

Pan Shiyi
Chairman and Co-founder, Soho China

Why he’s interesting: Even if you don’t know his face, you’ve seen his work. Pan Shiyi and his wife Zhang Xin are the people behind the SOHO developments in Beijing. Few cities have been transformed in the same way by a single developer; Donald Trump wishes that as many buildings and as much iconic architecture were visible in New York. Aside from driving taxi drivers crazy with their English-acronymed, similarly-monikered, mixed-use complexes, Pan is a celebrity on Sina Weibo, with 16 million followers.

What he says: “To understand the trend of the market you need to put the average statistics aside and look into the specific areas. As far as the Beijing market is concerned, there is no way prices will go down.”

Photo Courtesy of Pan Shiyi