Jiang, who had recently graduated from Harvard University with bachelor's degree in economics, worked at Goldman Sachs private equity unit for nine months.

He then left to launch Boyu and filed incorporation documents in Hong Kong in September 2010 where he listed himself as the company's sole director.

[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] In 2011, Mary Ma, the former chief financial officer at Lenovo, left her role at TPG Inc. to join Boyu.

The other three co-founders were all very experienced and reputable in the private equity field and when Boyu first made news in 2011, it was due to Ma's name rather than Jiang.

It has been stated that Jiang himself is a competent dealmaker, having personally negotiated in high-profile deals such as the ones involving Alibaba and Cinda.

According to his friends, Jiang works through a company's numbers when negotiating, which is a skill he picked up during his time at Goldman Sachs.

[2][3] In mid-2011, Boyu paid $80 million for a 40% stake in Sunrise Duty Free, a company that runs all duty-free stores at Shanghai and Beijing's international airports.

This deal helped established Boyu's presence and showed investors that Jiang could gain access to a strictly controlled state sector and convert its assets into highly profitable investments.

Boyu had joined a consortium led by China Investment Corporation to raise $7.1 billion for Ma to buy back a 20% stake of Alibaba from Yahoo!.