text: Liu Chuanzhi Liu Chuanzhi is the founder and former chairman of Lenovo. Liu was trained as an engineer at a military college and later went on to work at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Like many young people during the Cultural Revolution, Liu was denounced and sent to the countryside where he worked as a laborer on a rice farm. Liu claims Hewlett-Packard as a key source of inspiration. In an interview with The Economist he stated that "Our earliest and best teacher was Hewlett-Packard." For more than ten years, Lenovo was Hewlett-Packard's distributor in China. In reference to Lenovo's later acquisition of IBM's personal computer unit Liu said, "I remember the first time I took part in a meeting of IBM agents. I was wearing an old business suit of my father's and I sat in the back row. Even in my dreams, I never imagined that one day we could buy the IBM PC business. It was unthinkable. Impossible."
  Board of directors
  In early 2013, Lenovo announced the addition of Yahoo! founder Jerry Yang to its board. Lenovo's CEO Yang Yuanqing said, "Jerry's appointment as an observer to our board furthers Lenovo's reputation as a transparent international company." Just prior to the appointment of Jerry Yang, Tudor Brown, the founder of British semiconductor design firm ARM, was also appointed to Lenovo's board. Speaking of both men Yang Yuanqing said, "We believe that they will add a great deal to our strategic thinking, long-term direction and, ultimately, our ability to achieve our aspirations in the PC plus era."
  Marketing and sponsorships
  In 2009, Lenovo became the first personal computer manufacturer to divide countries into emerging markets and mature markets. Lenovo then developed a different set of strategies for each category. Lenovo's competitors have widely adopted the same approach In 2012, Lenovo made a major effort to expand its market share in developing economies such as Brazil and India through acquisitions and increased budgets for marketing and advertising.