Thrifty businesswoman finds balance between home and career

When Gong Haiyan showed up in the interviewee room, I found it hard to associate her with a Nasdaq-listed Chinese company because she was inexpensively dressed and wasn't wearing any makeup. She looked more like a young neighborhood mother than an ambitious entrepreneur who has already achieved something significant in her first career.

But the first questions she asked me soon connected her with Jiayuan.com, an online dating website she founded in 2003 that has evolved to become China's largest online matchmaking platform.

"Are you married?" she asked. When I said I wasn't, she wanted to know whether I had a boyfriend.