Mr Ren Zhengfei

Chief Executive Officer, Huawei Technologies

Date of Birth: 1944
Place of Birth: Guizhou

Huawei is China's largest producer of telecommunications equipment, built by an enigmatic figure, Ren Zhengfei. Born in 1944, Ren attended Chongqing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture. He joined the army, working as an engineer in a unit based in Sichuan. He left in 1978 during a troop downsizing and moved to Shenzhen, where he started an electronics company in 1982, the elder sibling of Huawei. In 1988, Huawei began as a provider of communication technology to the military, where Ren had maintained contacts. In 1993, Huawei entered the mobile telephone market as a digital switch manufacturer and found rapid success.

Huawei's first contract abroad came in 1996, when it struck a deal with Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa. Since then, its aggressive pursuit of overseas markets has made it the fifth-largest telecom in the world. In 2007, it posted US$12.6 billion in revenue and strong growth in emerging markets. This month, it signed a deal to equip the expansion of the mobile phone network of Etisalat Egypt.

Ren seems disinclined to shed the cloak of mystery that covers him. Frustrating both admirers and potential partners, the details of his biography have hardly become less sketchy in the past two decades. His military background, along with the still-undisclosed details of Huawei's ownership, engender suspicion whenever a potential overseas acquisition comes along. A $200 million deal with India's Reliance Communications in 2007 survived security fears, but a bid for a minority share of United States-based 3Com this year did not. Ren's chumminess with China's Communist Party leadership and past accusations of intellectual property theft from Cisco (settled out of court in 2004) and Fujitsu (widely reported but not pursued) have not helped.