Successful businesswoman retraces the steps of her great-grandfather

What began as an adventure has led to the biggest company in China developed by an Australian.

Australian businesswoman Jackie Yun now co-owns 70 restaurants in China. (Picture: John Appleyard)

Jackie Yun has quietly — and to herself, surprisingly — emerged as the top Australian business leader in China, co-owning and running the biggest company in the country yet developed by an Australian.

Her great-grandfather left China 130 years ago to seek his fortune — ending up first as a “coolie” in Papua New Guinea. From there the family shifted, generations later, to Sydney.

Yun is the first of his descendants to return, also chasing adventure, to live in China, where she has now made her own fortune.

Recently she and her Danish business partner John Christensen opened their 70th restaurant, 56 in their Wagas chain and 14 branded as Baker & Spice.

They employ 1,300 staff, with just three foreigners — Yun, Christiansen, and an Australian designer. They have a target of opening 25 restaurants a year, reducing the risk by expanding through cashflow.

Theirs is already the biggest privately-owned food and beverage company in the country, and the gap with their competitors is set to keep growing.

Yun’s grandparents moved to Sydney before she was born.

“I am the youngest of five, by 10 years,” she said. “Very spoiled.”

At school she failed to engage wholeheartedly with her studies. “Then when I was 21 my father threatened to kick me out of home. He said he didn’t care what job I got as long as I got one, even if it meant packing supermarket shelves.”

She landed a job in a swimming pool in Chatswood, worked there for a year, then started working in the pool cafe. After a year, she bought the cafe, running it for three more years.

She ended up burned out from the long hours, and when her parents helped her make another move, she felt it was time to take a bolder step.

“A cousin who had gone to Shanghai got in touch to say I would love the international lifestyle, and should come and stay for a while,’’ she said.

“I was fourth-generation Cantonese and we were not speaking Chinese at home. I told mum and dad I would like to study Chinese. That was the first time they had heard me say I wanted to study anything.

“Within three days, mum had planned everything. She and dad paid for a year of schooling in Shanghai.

‘‘I then enrolled for a second year, and have been here ever since. That was 18 years ago.”

She decided to move downtown from the university district, and changed schools.

Life was much more expensive downtown, so she needed a part time job, and inevitably turned to cafe work.

Christensen, a cafe customer, was impressed, phoned her to say he had heard through the grapevine that she wanted to move on.

He had one store and a manager he had brought in from Denmark, but was not satisfied with how things were going.

It was underperforming because the whole area was new. “And the Chinese were only starting to learn about cappuccinos, they were early days.”

He invited her to manage his restaurant. “I came to have a look. I walked around the block and saw the potential. The menu was OK. The styling needed work.

“(John and I) both recognised the opportunities. Once the towers went up, they would be our customers, our CBD.”

She offered to take the job as manager on condition that if she proved herself she would become his business partner.

“We did that on a handshake. We started to scale the business. When I joined I only considered one store. We didn’t realise the potential until the third.

“I worked hard on what Chinese people want, because there weren’t so many expatriates.”

The emerging middle class were just developing their tastes. The most popular Western food was spaghetti bolognaise “because pasta is familiar to noodle eaters, and they love meat. Back then hardly any people ate salads because they didn’t like raw food. It was a learning curve.”

The menu remains “modern Asian” inspired soup, sandwiches and salads.

Ten years ago luxury brands were seen as status symbols in China. “In more recent years, as Chinese people have begun travelling widely, they have moved on from showing off status symbols, and believing expensive means good.

“Now they know more about value. They want a good deal.”

Wagas is careful about pricing even though margins may be slightly lower than competitors.

“We want new customers, but we also want people to come to us three or four or five times a week, and maybe at weekends go to Baker & Spice.”

The company had just signed five leases in Beijing at some great locations, in 2007.

Then the financial crisis hit, and firms put their new offices on hold.

“We took a hit, pulled out and lost our deposits. But that also meant we had surplus cash flow, earmarked to support the opening of these new stores in Beijing. We went back to Shanghai.”

Wagas is now in 10 cities. “After we opened our 10th store, landlords started coming to us. We still have to go through a bidding process, but we are often seen as a good, reliable anchor tenant drawing high traffic.”

Customers are 80 per cent Chinese, in some stores more. Members of the generation that grew up familiar with Western foods now have children of their own and are pursuing a healthier lifestyle. Wagas has grown organically.

“It was always John and I as owners, and in day to day management terms, just me. We controlled costs, we didn’t spend on marketing or media. And because it’s just us, we have made decisions very quickly. No board or investors. We don’t have an excess of anything.”

Their money goes into the stores and working on products.

Will we see Wagas in Australia? “We’ve had a lot of interest from overseas, but China is a big place, and there are growth opportunities here. It doesn’t make sense to me why companies so quickly expand overseas. Each new city in China is a learning curve in itself.”