Lee Kun-hee

Samsung was founded by his father, Lee Byung-chul, as a trading company. Lee Kun-hee took over in 1987 and, in a 1993 speech in Frankfurt, told managers to change everything except their wives and children, demanding quality fit for global buyers rather than cheap volume for Korea. Staff famously burned a pile of defective phones in 1995. Under him Samsung became a world leader in memory chips, televisions and phones, though he was also twice convicted of financial crimes and pardoned both times.