Tiger Woman on Wall Street: Winning Business Strategies from Shanghai to New York and Back

In this business memoir, Li traces her journey from her childhood in Shanghai to her career on Wall Street, crediting much of her success to her strict Chinese parents. It was the harsh discipline of her “tiger” parents, she asserts, that made her fiercely determined to attend college in the U.S., pursue a career in finance, and compete in the aggressive world of hedge funds and global investing. Li touches on her formative experiences as a student at Middlebury College in the mid-1990s and describes her climb on Wall Street, where she worked at Aurarian Capital before it went under during the recent economic downturn, as well as her subsequent decision to start her own firm, JL Warren Capital, which provides analysis of Asian companies. While it provides a noteworthy glimpse into modern-day China’s economic evolution, the book jumps from the personal to the professional and back without establishing a clear point of view. After writing about her character and early education, Li spends chapter after chapter describing stock analysis and countless individual companies, both American and Chinese. With brief mention of the fallout of her “tiger” work ethic—such as the failure of Li’s short-lived marriage—the reader is left with a portrait of a woman obsessed with success but not sure if this is the path to happiness. Agent: Esmond Harmsworth, Zachary Shuster Harmsworth. (Nov.)