Zhang posts daily, mostly from her iPad on China's Twitter-like microblogging platform Sina Weibo, where she has over 5 million followers. Her posts range from photos of Beijing's pollution to musings on global news events, including the Newtown shooting ("Honestly, can't the politicians set aside politics and ban guns? There are always mental patients in the crowd and we can't give guns to them."), Mitt Romney (After he promised to bring jobs back to the US from China: "Don't talk nonsense. Would Americans really do the work Chinese people do?"), and Oscar Pistorius ("Terrible. A Valentines Day tragedy.")

She's a prolific blogger

Zhang is part of a class of Chinese business people who moved back home after working in the West and are known as hai gui, "sea turtles," a pun on a similar-sounding phrase for "returning from the sea." After moving to Hong Kong as a teenager, where she worked in a garment factory, Zhang studied at the University of Sussex and Cambridge University and then found work with Goldman Sachs. When she returned to China and married her husband, Pan Shiyi (He reportedly proposed to her within four days of their meeting; she took three days before saying yes) she was known among their coworkers as "Pan's foreign wife".

Zhang has become increasingly outspoken in politics. As recently as 2011, she claimed to be apolitical, but she regularly posts about Chinese reforms and the need to clean up pollution. Last year she said the reason why China has no one like Steve Jobs is because the political system squashes creativity. In an interview last week with 60 Minutes, she said: "If you ask one thing everyone craves for is what? It's not food. It's not homes. Everyone craves for democracy. I know there's a lot of negativities in the U.S. about the political system, but don't forget, you know, 8,000 miles away, people in China are looking at it, longing for it." Asked if she believed democracy would come to China in 20 years, Zhang said, "sooner." In 1995, the two set up a real estate company; within 10 years SOHO China became the country's largest property developer. They became some of China's wealthiest and most flamboyant property couples, entertaining the likes of Rupert Murdoch and his wife during the Olympics in Beijing in 2008. Pan is the company's chairman and Zhang is the chief executive.

SOHO China's 2012 profits more than doubled, to 3.34 billion RMB ($537 million) from 1.42 billion RMB. The company is transitioning from a "build-and-sell" to "buy-and-hold" strategy, with rental income set to become its main source of profits within three years. Its also known for its dramatically modern retail and office properties, designed by the likes of Kengo Kuma and Zaha Hadid.Her business is booming

The Sheryl Sandberg of China?

In a country and region with few women in executive roles, Zhang is something of an anomaly, but she doesn't think it needs to stay that way.