T ang Yiu is a self-made Hong Kong billionaire who is the founder and chairman of Belle International, a company he built into China's largest retailer of women's footwear. He started his career in the 1960s, working in a leather goods factory. In 1981, he founded his own company to manufacture shoes. He later created the Belle brand and pivoted the business from manufacturing into retail, opening his own stores to sell his shoes directly to consumers in the booming mainland China market.

This strategy was a massive success, and he built a colossal retail empire with a network of thousands of shoe stores across China, selling both his own brands (like Belle and Staccato) and licensed international brands. He took the company public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2007. In 2017, in one of the largest-ever buyouts in Asia, Belle International was taken private by a consortium of private equity firms for nearly $7 billion, a deal that crystalized Tang's immense fortune. He has since focused on managing his wealth and his philanthropic activities.