With the recovery of consumption and the phased victories achieved by a large number of Chinese companies going overseas, the Forbes China 2024 Best CEOs list has started a new round of changes.
This year, a total of 11 CEOs are back on the list, and 15 are consecutively selected, so we'll see more familiar faces than in previous years; But the competition is still fierce, for example, 24 CEOs were selected for the first time on this year's list, and the younger post-80s CEOs also reached a record six, three times more than last year.
It has been 20 years since the first edition of Forbes China's Best CEOs list was released in 2005, and this list is very different every year. But what remains unchanged is that no matter what the environment is, there are always people who can lead the company to achieve returns that far exceed the market average.
As in previous years, in order to fully assess the specific performance of the No. 1 business position, we conducted an in-depth study of the CEOs of thousands of companies, including A-shares, Chinese Hong Kong stocks and overseas-listed Chinese concept stocks. The CEOs of listed companies with comprehensive scores are selected by referring to the basic financial indicators and shareholder return indicators such as market capitalization, stock price rise and fall in the range, net profit and growth rate, and ROE.
It should be noted that in order to exclude the possibility that some CEOs are chasing short-term financial indicators at the expense of the company's long-term development, Forbes China pays special attention to the operating performance of their companies for two consecutive years in the survey of the best CEOs, rather than the company's fluctuations in the capital market or financial numbers in the short term.
Unlike previous years, this year's list does not place a special emphasis on the order in which CEOs are ranked. However, it is worth noting that the stock price of the top 10 CEOs led by the top 10 CEOs increased by an average of 47% during the performance review period, and the average net profit growth rate in the most recent financial year also reached 170%. Judging from the shareholder return and growth data alone, Pinduoduo led by Chen Lei and Zhao Jiazhen has achieved business performance that exceeds its peers. This outstanding performance is mainly due to the continuous optimization of operations in the domestic market and the breakthrough in overseas markets.
This year's Forbes China Best CEOs list has 15 consecutive finalists, an increase of five from last year. Among them, BYD's Wang Chuanfu and Inovance Technology's Zhu Xingming have become the only two CEOs in this year's list to be selected for four consecutive years. This year, BYD is still "fierce", and its fifth-generation DM-i system released at the end of May will push the range of plug-in hybrid vehicles to 2,100 kilometers, which also means that the competition intensity of China's new energy vehicles will soon escalate again.
Among the continuous list-on-list, it is not difficult to find that new energy and semiconductor-related industries have always been high-yield fields for the best CEOs. But an interesting note in this year's list is that the share of CEOs in consumer companies has increased even more significantly, thanks to the strong return of a group of CEOs of consumer durables.
Midea Group's Fang Hongbo re-entered the top 10 after a two-year hiatus, relying on the company's outstanding global growth momentum and outstanding performance in the capital market. Also returning and entering the top 10 is Lei Jun of Xiaomi Group. From ranking among the top three in the world in smartphone shipments in 16 quarters to the hot sales of the first electric car SU7, Lei Jun has once again cleared the doubts of the market, and also promoted a consensus on a larger scale - the "stardom" of the CEO will change the marketing paradigm of many enterprises.
"Lei Jun", as one of the most successful entrepreneur IPs in China, helped Xiaomi SU7 go on the market for 24 hours, and Dading exceeded 88,898 units; In addition to the product itself, the hot sales of SU7 are also due to Lei Jun's live streaming ability. Economist Ren Zeping then commented, saying that the live broadcast of the conference was "equivalent to 20 billion GMV, which is a dimensionality reduction blow to traditional marketing." In March this year, Li Bin, CEO of Weilai Automobile, reached 320 car orders through live streaming, locking in sales of about 128 million yuan. The earlier phenomenal entrepreneur IP marketing came from the GMV record of 110 million set by Luo Yonghao when he entered Douyin. There is reason to believe that there may be more intensive cases of entrepreneur marketing this year.
From the perspective of industry performance, CEOs in AI-related fields have not been able to continue last year's outstanding performance in this year's list. When human beings dig the "gold mine" of artificial intelligence, the first to benefit may not be "digging for gold", but "selling shovels". With the continuous loss of GitHubCopilot, Microsoft's first generative AI product, the profit anxiety of listed companies related to large models has also been further amplified this year. But a group of CEOs of AI hardware companies in China have seized the opportunity. In the past 12 months, the market performance of companies such as Zhongji Innolight, Xinyisheng, and Tianfu Communications has far exceeded that of most AI companies. Among them, under the leadership of Liu Sheng, the net profit attributable to the parent company in 2023 will reach 2.125 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 104.81%.
In addition to Pinduoduo's Chen Lei and Zhao Jiazhen, four more post-80s generations have been added this year. Among them, Wang Ning, CEO of Bubble Mart, who was born in 1987, became the youngest self-made founder in the history of this list.
In the first quarter of 2024, Pop Mart, a pop culture and entertainment group with IP as the core, maintained a rapid growth rate of more than 40%, and the overseas market continued its rapid growth trend over the years, with a year-on-year increase of nearly 250%. However, the success of Pop Mart is largely due to "slowness", that is, it does not blindly pursue rapid expansion and market share improvement, but pays more attention to business quality and user experience. This year, the company's boundaries are still extending outward in an orderly manner, such as creating more popular products including building blocks, laying out games, and promoting the construction of theme parks.
This year, a total of 42 CEOs led the company to achieve impressive overseas revenue growth, a 12% increase compared to last year. It is worth mentioning that in the top 10 Forbes China CEOs in 2024, the average contribution rate of overseas revenue to growth is as high as 33%. This means that if China's top CEOs are unable to lead their companies across markets, they will fall behind their peers in terms of growth.
Last year, Chen Lei, co-CEO of Pinduoduo, told Forbes China that the core of Chinese companies going overseas is still to understand the diverse needs of consumers and explore the possibility of using their own experience and resources to create unique value.
More successful overseas business cases still come from the manufacturing industry. After Viet Nam, Cambodia and Mexico, Sailun Tire has set up its fourth overseas base in Indonesia this year. With the first-mover advantage of overseas layout, in 2023, Sailun Tire will complete the surpassing of many competitors such as Zhengxin Rubber, Toyo Tire, and Linglong Tire. In 2023, Changan's overseas sales will reach 358,000 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 43.86%; In the same period, the overseas revenue of 20.536 billion yuan also increased by 53.13% compared with last year.
Among them, the most noteworthy female CEO is Yang Lijuan of Haidilao. Since her appointment in 2021, she has put the company back on a growth trajectory in just three years. In 2023, Haidilao's overall revenue will be 41.453 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 33.6%; The after-tax profit for the year was as high as 4.495 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of about 174.6%. In addition, Haidilao's international business also turned a profit last year. (On June 21 this year, Yang Lijuan resigned as CEO of Haidilao; On July 1, he became the CEO of Haite International. ）
Here is the full list of the 2024 Forbes China's Best CEOs:
Instructions for making rankings1. Due to the different job settings of each company, "best CEO" is a general term for the positions of CEO, president, general manager, bank president and other positions of each company; 2. Research scope: A-shares, Chinese-funded Hong Kong stocks, and Chinese concept stocks listed overseas; 3. Qualifications: The listed company has at least two years of financial data, and the CEO has been re-elected in the last two financial years, or has actually exercised the power of CEO in two financial years;
4. Ranking calculation and method: focus on the performance of listed companies, market size, stock price rise and fall in the reference range, total market capitalization, net profit and growth rate, ROA, ROE and other indicators.
Note: For non-RMB currencies, the exchange rate at the end of the current year will be used. The stock price increase is based on 2022/5/31 to 2024/5/29, and the total market value is based on 2024/5/30, which is uniformly extracted according to the Wind database.
Source: Forbes China Research, listed company annual reports and announcements, Wind data
Producer: Joel Li
Forbes China exclusive manuscript, please do not reprint without permission
Never miss out on exciting information
▽