Born in Zhenning County, Anshun City, Guizhou Province, graduated from Chongqing University of Architecture and Technology, and is the founder of Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
In 2018, he was selected as one of the "Top 100 Outstanding Private Entrepreneurs in the 40 Years of Reform and Opening up" by the Central United Front Work Department and the All China Federation of Industry and Commerce. He was also named the "2019 Chinese Economic News Figure" and was selected as one of the "Cross border Business Leaders of the Year" by Forbes magazine in 2019.
He has been selected as one of Time magazine's 100 most influential figures globally, one of the 100 outstanding private entrepreneurs in the 40 years of reform and opening up, one of China's 50 most influential business leaders, and one of Asia's top 100 business figures.
In September 1991, Huawei rented the third floor of the Industrial Building in Haoye Village, Bao'an County, Shenzhen as a site for developing program-controlled switches. More than 50 young employees followed Ren Zhengfei to this dilapidated factory building and began their difficult and unknown entrepreneurial journey. They divided the entire floor into four sections: veneer, power supply, overall testing, and preparation, as well as a warehouse and kitchen. People sweat profusely under the high temperature of machines, working day and night to design and produce circuit boards, call centers, soldered circuit boards, write software, debug, modify, and re debug. In this situation, Ren Zhengfei almost goes to the site every day to inspect the production and development progress, hold meetings to study the difficulties faced, and divide the work to coordinate and solve various problems. When it was mealtime, Ren Zhengfei and the company leaders gathered at the food stall to have a meal with everyone