The chairman of a family-run shipping conglomerate more than 50 years old, Po Ting Chen is known in the industry as the “Prince of the Sea” for turning Wan Hai Lines into a profitable operation in the wake of the shipping crisis of the late 1990s.

Going against company opinion, he added a new container service route from Asia to the United States, a gamble that paid off when Wan Hai outperformed the two top shippers. In the latter half of 2020 when manufacturers resumed production and the work-from-home boom led to a demand for telecommuting devices, shipping companies in Asia enjoyed an uptick.

Wan Hai reported sales of NT$82 billion in 2020, with its aftertax net income reaching a record high of NT$11 billion, triple that of the previous year. It is now the 11th largest container carrier in the world, operating 83 of its own ships and chartering 62. Chen is expanding the company’s fleet, with 32 new ships to arrive by 2023.