デズモンド・シャム（Desmond Shum、1968年–）は、中国で投資と不動産開発に携わった実業家、作家。上海の教員の家庭に生まれ、9歳で香港へ移住した。米国のウィスコンシン大学マディソン校で金融と会計を学び、1993年に卒業。香港で株式仲買人として働いたのち、投資事業に進み、中国のテクノロジー、金融、不動産分野に関わった。のちに妻となるホイットニー・デュアンと共同で都市開発を手がけ、北京空港の貨物物流施設や北京のブルガリホテルの開発に携わった。事業を通じて中国の政財界と接した経験は、2021年の回想録『レッド・ルーレット――中国の富・権力・腐敗・報復の内幕』（原題 “Red Roulette: An Insider’s Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today’s China”）の背景となった。同書では、自身とデュアンが資産を築く過程をたどり、政治家やその家族との人脈、事業上の交渉、富と権力の結びつきを当事者の視点から記した。2017年に元妻デュアンが北京で消息を絶った出来事にも触れ、経済成長の機会を利用してきた企業家が政治権力に左右される状況を、自らの事業と家族の歩みに重ねて描いた。
Desmond Shum (born 1968) is a businessman and author whose career encompassed investment and property development in China. Born into a family of teachers in Shanghai, he moved to Hong Kong at the age of nine. He studied finance and accounting at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, graduating in 1993, and returned to Hong Kong to work as a stockbroker. He subsequently entered the investment business, working across technology, finance, and real estate in Greater China. With Whitney Duan, whom he later married, he undertook urban development projects, including the Beijing Airport Cargo Terminal and the Bulgari Hotel in Beijing. His encounters with China’s business and political elite formed the background to his 2021 memoir, “Red Roulette: An Insider’s Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today’s China.” Recounting how he and Duan accumulated their wealth, the book described negotiations, connections with politicians and their families, and the relationship between money and political influence from a participant’s perspective. It also addressed the disappearance of Duan, by then his former wife, in Beijing in 2017. Combining his business history with his family’s experience, Shum portrayed entrepreneurs’ dependence on political power within an economy whose growth had offered them opportunities to build substantial fortunes.
