TSMC's chief financial officer Lora Ho says glass ceiling 'in your heart'

Lora Ho's career has taken her through smoke-filled meeting rooms with men cracking lewd jokes. It's also seen her helm US$46 billion in capital spending at Taiwan's largest chipmaker.

Since becoming Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC) chief financial officer in 2003, Ho has overseen a tripling of annual profit amid an escalating battle with Intel and Samsung Electronics to make chips for the world's largest technology companies. Her 30-year career charts a climb through male-dominated management teams, motherhood, and early adoption of technology to the top ranks of a company that earns about US$8 in revenue from every smartphone sold worldwide.

"The glass ceiling is in your heart," Ho said at the company's Hsinchu headquarters. "It doesn't really exist."

Commanding half the market for contract chip-making and with customers including Apple and Qualcomm, TSMC this year won orders to make the processors that power Apple's iPhone, ending Samsung's exclusivity.

That victory is part of a continuing trend at TSMC to manufacture more of the chips that connect a phone to networks, control its display, or sense movement. Intel and Samsung also see potential in the chip foundry business, opening up more of their factories to the designs of outside clients.

Increasing demand and heightened competition mean Ho has had to find funds to cover annual capital spending that's ballooned from US$2.7 billion in 2009 to a record US$9.6 billion this year - a figure exceeded by only Samsung and Intel in the chip industry - while still maintaining a return on equity that's kept shareholders hanging on to the stock.

"For fiscal and financial management, TSMC gets a five-star rating," said John Brebeck, Taipei-based senior adviser at investment advisory firm Peace Field. Ho's credibility allowed TSMC to easily tap capital markets, he said.