Background and career
Ren Zhengfei (Chinese: 任正非; born 25 October 1944) is a Chinese entrepreneur and engineer who is the founder and CEO of Huawei Technologies, which is located in Shenzhen, China, and is one of the world's largest manufacturers of telecommunications equipment and smartphones.
Ren was born on 25 October 1944, in Zhenning County, Guizhou. His grandfather, Ren Sanhe (任三和), was a master chef from Rendian Village (任店村), Pujiang County, Zhejiang, and who specialized in curing ham. His father, Ren Musheng (任木生), with the courtesy name Moxun (摩逊; Móxùn), failed to complete university studies when Ren Zhengfei's grandfather died a year prior to his graduation. During the Japanese occupation, his father migrated south to Guangzhou to work in a military factory of the Nationalist government as an accounts clerk. After 1949, his father was appointed as the president of No. 1 Middle School of Duyun (都匀一中), where he met Ren Zhengfei's mother Cheng Yuanzhao (程远昭), a senior teacher at the school; his elder brother became a member of the CCP in 1958. Ren has five younger sisters and one younger brother.
He spent his primary and junior high school years in a mountain village. In elementary and middle school, Ren was known for being withdrawn and unsociable, and he was denied admission to the Communist Youth League due to his insufficiently developed spirit of collectivism. In high school, he always wore a single-layer coat due to poverty. In 1960, in his third year of high school, there was a serious famine in Guizhou Province. At this time, Ren's family was starving. In order to support his family, Ren implemented a strict system of food distribution in his family. To cope with hunger, Ren often went to the mountains to pick wild fruits instead of grain. No matter how hungry he was, he did not eat the rations of his family. Thanks to this, none of his brothers and sisters starved to death. To relieve his hunger, Ren mixed rice bran and vegetables together, which he stopped when his father found out. With the Chinese college examinations approaching, Cheng Yuanzhao (程远昭), even though poor, gave him a scallion pancake every morning. Ren later thought the pancake was crucial to his future achievements. In 1963, 19-year-old Ren was admitted to Chongqing Institute of Architectural Engineering (later merged into Chongqing University) to major in building services engineering. Cheng Yuanzhao made him two white shirts and a pair of sheets, which he wore throughout four years of college. In 1966, when Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution, Ren, who was studying in college, received a letter mentioning that his father had been dismissed and criticized for his experience working in the Kuomintang's 412 military factory. Ren boarded a train surrounded by Red Guards who were asking the passengers about their background. Because he replied that his father was a teacher, Ren was pushed off the train by them, so he had to walk home. Ren told his family that there were also "infights" in college, and basically no one attended classes, but his father told him that knowledge was important and encouraged him to use it to help his brothers and sisters. After returning to college, Ren taught himself computers, digital technology, automatic control, logic, philosophy, and three foreign languages. Ren collected leaflets and sent them to his mother to encourage his father who was in trouble. In one piece of paper, there is a passage from Zhou Enlai: "cadres should seek truth from facts. If they are not, do not admit it at random. Things will always be figured out." Cheng Yuanzhao passed this passage on to his father. Because of this note, his father did not commit suicide. In 1970, he obeyed a policy directed at all college students in leaving school to join the army for training.
In 1968, Ren Zhengfei graduated from university and was assigned to the 304th Battalion of the 31st Detachment of the Infrastructure Engineering Corps in Anshun, which was founded in 1966, to participate in the construction of the aircraft factory of the 011 base. In 1974, in order to build for industrial modernization, he established Liaoyang Petrochemical Fiber General Factory in Liaoyang. In the same year, Ren was drafted into the army and joined the 22nd detachment of the Infrastructure Engineering Corps of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). He served as a technician and engineer, working on automation processes in the chemical industry. While serving in the PLA, Ren extensively studied Mao Zedong's writings, particularly Quotations of Chairman Mao and Selected Works of Mao Zedong. He received several awards for his proficiency and excellence in Maoist theory. In March 1978, 33-year-old Ren went to Beijing to attend the National Science Conference, which was attended by more than 6000 delegates. The same year, Ren joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Throughout most of his military career, Ren was denied entry to the Communist Party due to his parents' social background and his father's work for the Nationalist government. He was only able to join the Party shortly before his retirement. In 1982, the government of the People's Republic of China readjusted its economic and military system and reduced the size of the army. Ren was transferred to a scientific research base. At this time, Ren's wife went to work in the Shenzhen Southern Oil Group (深圳市南油 (集团)有限公司). Subsequently, he made a job transfer, ending 11 years of army life, and went south to Shenzhen with his sons and daughters. The same year, he attended the 12th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. After joining the Southern Oil Group, Ren could not stand the bureaucracy of some department leaders who were content with the status quo and did not want to make progress. He requested that one of the company's subsidiaries be handed over to him, but the request was not approved. In 1983, he was appointed deputy general manager of an electronics company owned by the group. Soon after, Ren was cheated out of more than 2 million yuan by a businessman. At that time, his monthly salary in the mainland was less than 100 yuan. Ren's first job ended in resignation. After resigning, Ren divorced his wife, and he rented a house of no more than ten square meters with his parents and nephews.
In 1987, Ren Zhengfei, 43, and his partners founded Shenzhen Huawei Technology Co., Ltd., which means "Having a Heart connected to Chunghua, and making a difference" (心系中华，有所作为). At the beginning of establishing the company, friends recommended him to make money with high profits, but Ren thought that was not a long-term solution. After the introduction of a friend, he began to sell industrial instruments, but this was not economically viable in the long term. Later, Ren earned the first money for the company by selling HAX Technologies' program-controlled switches on consignment. At that time, the Chinese market was full of products from various countries. Faced with the gradual decline in switch prices and competition, Ren made a decision to import components made in China and hire people to assemble small user exchanges. He has been president of Huawei since 1988. In September 1991, Ren assembled a Huawei program-controlled switch with his employees. As Huawei's products are cheap, supply exceeded demand. Because of a shortage of domestic parts, Ren continued to assemble products while starting research and development. Like his employees, Ren reportedly ate and lived in the factory, going so far as to make soup for his employees in the evening. Due to the long lead time of research and development and the shortage of capital, Ren had to borrow at usurious rates to maintain normal operations of the company. Soon, Ren promoted the new BH03 switch. In order to solve the sales problem, he began to accept agents. In 1992, Ren Zhengfei invited professors and students from Huazhong Technology University, Tsinghua University, and others to visit. In early 1993, more than 270 Huawei employees held a 1992 summary meeting in a small auditorium in Shekou, Shenzhen. Ren decided to use switches in the R and D Bureau to enter the field of public telephones and telecommunications. At the meeting, he presented 100 gold medals to outstanding employees and the boss of Hongnian Company (鸿年公司) in Hong Kong, which supported the start of the Huawei. Ren hired Xu Wenwei (徐文伟) from the nearby Yilida Group (亿利达集团) and put him in charge of the hardware.
In May 1993, Ren presided over a meeting of marketing managers and officially launched the JK1000 office telephone, after which more than 200 units were sold. In order to acquire talent, Ren also set up a "Talent recommendation Award". JK1000 products focus on the use of analog circuit technology rather than digital circuit technology, so that Ren made the mistake of not keeping up with the times. At that time, the company was short of money, and Huawei was on half pay, and the other half was recorded in the account. Ren set up a "everyone shareholding system": converting half of his recorded wages into shares in Huawei, which can be exchanged for cash when he resigns. In March 1996, Ren invited professors to form a Huawei basic law drafting group. The Huawei basic law was ready by 1998. Ren has sought to ingrain CCP ideology into Huawei's management and corporate culture. He states that if a conflict between the interests of Huawei and those of the CCP's arose, he would "choose the CCP whose interest is to serve the people and all human beings" and that he could not betray the principle of serving all human beings.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
