CEO Today Top 50 – Lei Jun
CEO Top 50
Name: Lei Jun
Net worth: Approx. $14 billion Executive pay: $23 million
Company: Xiaomi
Bio: Lei Jun is the Founder and CEO of Xiaomi: a designer, and developer and seller of smartphones, mobile apps, laptops and similar electronics. Xiaomi is based in Beijing and has 15,000 employees across China, India, Malaysia and Singapore—it is the world’s 5th largest smartphone company as of 2017.
Lei Attended Wuhan University, where he graduated with a BA in computer science in 1991. During his time working as Kingsoft’s CEO from 1998-2007, he founded Joyo.com in 2000, an online bookstore that he sold to Amazon for $75 million later in 2004.
He went on to found Xiaomi Inc. in April 2010 together with Lin Bin, Dr Zhou Guangping, Liu De, Li Wanqiang, Wong Kong-Kat and Hong Feng. By 2014, the company had raised $1 billion and was valued at around $45 billion.
Lei was named one of 11 most powerful business people in Asia by Fortune in 2013 and was named Businessman of The Year by Forbes Asia a year later.
Xiaomi announced its intent to enter the electric vehicle market in March 2021. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun claimed the company would invest 10 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion) into the project. The initial Xiaomi automobile, produced under a contract with BAIC Off-road in Beijing, was unveiled in December 2023. The vehicle was officially introduced on March 28, 2024, in Beijing, marking the commencement of car orders by Xiaomi. Xiaomi has become the country’s eighth-largest electric vehicle upstart after selling more than 7,000 units of its first model, the SU7 sedan, in April 2024, according to industry data.
Quote: “Things get much easier if one jumps on the bandwagon of existing trends.” – Lei Jun
