Ruth Mulan Chu Chao

Ruth Mulan Chu Chao (; March 19, 1930 – August 2, 2007) was the matriarch of a Chinese-American family successful in shipping. In 2016, Harvard Business School dedicated the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center in her honor, making it the first building at the business school named for a woman and an Asian American.

Personal life Chu Mulan (or Mulan Chu) was born on March 19, 1930, in Anhui, China, daughter of the Honorable Vei Ching Chu , a member of the Judicial Yuan, She was named for the Chinese folklore heroine, Hua Mulan, the legendary warrior representing qualities of character, courage, and resolve. Sewing it into her garments and passing undetected through checkpoints of the occupying Japanese forces, she returned safely to her family, having secured resources they needed to survive the conflict. Her family eventually migrated to Shanghai, where she first attended Ming Teh Girls High School and later Number One High School in Jiading and met her future husband, James Si-Cheng Chao. They each independently went to Taiwan in 1949, and were reunited when he found her name in a local newspaper's listing of recent graduates.

They married in 1951 and began their family. Their family settled for several years in Jamaica, New York and later moved to Syosset, New York. They reared six daughters; four of them attended the Harvard Business School.

After her six daughters were grown, when she was 51 years old, she entered St. John's University in New York City and graduated at the age of 53 with a master's degree in Asian literature and history.

Philanthropy James Si-Cheng Chao and Ruth Mulan Chu Chao established the Foremost Foundation "to help young people access higher education... while also supporting health care initiatives and U.S.-Asia cultural exchanges." The Foundation has provided scholarships to more than 5,000 students.

The Shanghai Jiao Tong University named the building housing its School of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Civil Engineering in honor of the philanthropy of Ruth Mulan Chu Chao and her husband, James Si-Cheng Chao, an alumnus of the university.

In 2012, the Chao family donated US$40 million to Harvard Business School, supporting the US$35 million construction of the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center and US$5 million to endow a scholarship fund, the Ruth Mulan Chu and James Si-Cheng Chao Family Fellowship Fund, for students of Chinese heritage. Made on the 50th anniversary of Harvard's first acceptance of women into its MBA program, Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust said, "Her progressive views on the importance of education live on in her daughters, each of whom has used their education to improve the world around them." At the dedication, Elaine Chao said that her mother "believed that men and women should be treated equally, and she and my father made sure her six daughters were equipped with the tools they needed to realize their dreams"