Designed to Win

Po Chung co-founded DHL International in Hong Kong in 1972 and ran the network outside the Americas as it grew into a service reaching nearly every country on earth. The book is his attempt to generalise from that: what a global network business actually is, why a service network cannot be managed the way a product company is, and what has to be designed deliberately — hand-offs, standards, local ownership, a service culture that survives translation — for a company to operate across borders rather than merely sell across them. Some editions carry the alternate subtitle “How to Build and Lead a Thriving Global Network Business (DHL’s 50 Years).”

Why it’s on the list: Bold on @mastersinvest’s 2025 list, meaning the curator rated it very good rather than merely read. It pairs with the other DHL book on the same list, Jane Chung’s company history.

Where I saw it: @mastersinvest’s “2025 Reading … so far” list, August 20, 2025, where it appears in bold, annotated “Po Chung, founder DHL International”. The full 46-title list is transcribed on 2025 Reading So Far… (tweet).

Connections

• 2025 Reading So Far… (tweet) — the list this came from.
• DHL: Three Letters That Shrank the World — the other DHL book on the same list, written from inside the company by a former global executive.