2012-09-19

Spreadtrum CFO shows company's 'soft' skills

Spreadtrum CFO shows company's 'soft' skills


SHANGHAI, China – Shannon Gao, chief financial officer at Spreadtrum Communications, is a Chinese-born, U.S.-trained certified public accountant, who has worked for Spreadtrum since the company’s inception in 2001.

After working in the U.S. for several years, Gao returned to China when Leo Li took over Spreadtrum, based here, in 2009. Gao assumed the CFO's position in 2010.

Returning to China at that point in her career wasn’t exactly what Gao had in mind. She agreed to return mostly out of a sense of duty to Spreadtrum and loyalty to Li. Gao has stood by the company through thick and thin, including a rocky IPO.

The fabless company focused on baseband chips for mobile handsets went public in 2007 after being touted as China's top IC company. By the end of 2008, Spreadtrum’s Nasdaq stock price had tanked. Spreadtrum kept missing quarterly financial targets. By the first quarter of 2009, it was left with virtually no customers, and had only enough cash to “last only for the next two quarters,” Li told us in an interview.


TAG:Spreadtrum Smartphones Shannon Gao Short Seller CPA

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