英8岁男童经营“弹珠国王”成世界最小CEO(图)

屈联西

2011年11月18日  中国日报网-英语点津

英8岁男童成世界最小CEO

　　英国伦敦8岁男童哈利•乔丁可能是目前世界上最年轻的CEO，他经营的“弹珠国王”网店已盈利数千英镑，现在的业务量需要他的妈妈和哥哥们帮助才能处理完。哈利从6岁起开始痴迷弹珠，在学校与同学交换弹珠结果被抢光以后，他和妈妈一起上网想要买一批新的弹珠。他们发现网上卖弹珠的店很少，于是哈利便请求妈妈帮他开了自己的“弹珠国王”网店，没想到开业后不久便来了大量订单。现在，哈利的梦想是进一步扩展自己的业务，并推出自家品牌的弹珠。
　　For the past two years, 8-year-old Harli Jordean from Stoke Newington, London, has been selling marbles. His successful marble company, Marble King, sells all things marble-related — from affordable tubs of the glass playthings to significantly pricier items like Duke of York solitaire tables — sourced, purchased and processed by the mini-CEO himself.
　　"I like having my own company. I like being the boss," Harli told the Mirror.
　　With profits now in the thousands, "the world's youngest CEO" has had to recruit his mother and older brothers to help him meet the growing demand.
　　Harli launched Marble King after swapping marbles at school led to schoolchildren depleting his marble collection. Yes, he literally "lost his marbles." Harli and his mother, Tina, turned to the Internet to find replacements.
　　Harli saw a void online: the marbles he wanted were hard to find. Within months, Harli had his own marble-selling website — and orders started pouring in.
　　Tina says her son's obsession with marbles started when he was just 6:
　　"His obsession became so big we started calling him the Marble King — so when he wanted to set up a website it was the natural name for it," she told The Sun.
　　"I never thought it would become so popular — we are struggling to cope with the number of orders at times."
　　The 8-year-old boy has his sights set on expanding his business and launching his own brand of marbles.
　　"Sometimes his ideas are so grand we have to scale them back a bit. But his dream is still to own Britain's biggest marble shop and open stores around the world," Tina told The Daily Mail.
　　"At the minute he is pestering me about creating his own Marble King marbles — so that could well be the next step for him."