SZ trio among world's 100 most powerful business figures

Three Shenzhen entrepreneurs — Wang Chuanfu of BYD, Ren Zhengfei of Huawei, and Ma Huateng (Pony Ma) of Tencent — were named on Fortune’s 2025 “Most Powerful People in Business” list, which was released last week.

Wang, BYD’s chairman, CEO, and founder, rose to 5th place, and Ren, Huawei’s founder and CEO, to 7th. They ranked 19th and 14th last year, respectively. Ma, CEO and chairman of Tencent, climbed to 25th from 80th.

(L-R) A combination photo of Wang Chuanfu of BYD, Ren Zhengfei of Huawei, and Ma Huateng of Tencent. File photo

Fortune noted that BYD is the world’s largest maker of new energy vehicles (NEVs), selling 4.24 million cars in 2024. Wang, compared to a mix of prolific inventor Thomas Edison and Jack Welch who led General Electric from 1981 to 2001 by U.S. billionaire investor Charlie Munger, founded BYD in 1995 as a battery maker before pivoting to automobiles in 2003. BYD’s affordable NEVs dominate China and are expanding into Europe, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. The company has new factories in Thailand, Hungary, Brazil, and Pakistan.

Huawei has become a symbol of China’s push for tech self‑reliance. The company, now investing heavily in strategic areas such as AI chips and electric vehicles, posted nearly US$120 billion in revenue last year.

Tencent, described by Fortune as the backbone of China’s internet, operates WeChat, which has over 1.3 billion monthly users. Under Ma’s leadership, the company is a global gaming powerhouse. Tencent is rapidly integrating generative AI into its core services.

In total, eight Chinese entrepreneurs made this year’s list, which spanned 28 industries worldwide.

Apart from the three Shenzhen entrepreneurs, the other five are Lei Jun of Xiaomi, Zeng Yuqun of Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd., Zhang Yiming of Byte Dance, Bonnie Chan of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, and Liang Wenfeng of DeepSeek.