2026 HURUN CHINA P&G ALUMNI WEALTH TOP 15

2026 HURUN RESEARCH RELEASES THE FIRST HURUN CHINA P&G ALUMNI WEALTH TOP 15.

THE 16 ALUMNI TOGETHER HOLD LISTED SHARES WORTH OVER CNY 27BN, SPANNING INTELLIGENT MARKETING, NEW ENERGY, AI CHIPS, BIOPHARMACEUTICALS AND OTHER SECTORS.

THREE P&G ALUMNI – HUANG XIAONAN, CHI YUFENG AND XIE PENG – MAKE THE HURUN CHINA RICH LIST 2026 AT THE SAME TIME.

9 OF THE RANKED ALUMNI CAME FROM THE MARKETING DEPARTMENT AND THREE FROM THE SALES DEPARTMENT; P&G’S BRAND-MANAGEMENT SYSTEM HAS BECOME THE FOUNDATION OF THEIR STARTUPS.

PEKING UNIVERSITY LEADS WITH 4 ALUMNI HOLDING A COMBINED CNY 13.1BN, OR 47%; PEKING, TSINGHUA AND XI’AN JIAOTONG UNIVERSITIES TAKE ALL OF THE TOP SIX SPOTS.

THREE LISTED COMPANIES – DEEPZERO, RLX TECHNOLOGY AND BRANDMAX – EACH BRING TOGETHER TWO OR MORE P&G ALUMNI, A STRONG SIGN OF ALUMNI CLUSTERING.

P&G REMAINS IN THE GLOBAL TOP TIER FOR TALENT OUTPUT: AS OF 2025, 11 SITTING CEOS OF FORTUNE 500 COMPANIES IN THE US WERE P&G ALUMNI.

(6 November 2026, Shanghai, China) The Hurun Research Institute today released the first 2026 Hurun China P&G Alumni Wealth Top 15. The list identifies Chinese entrepreneurs and executives who have formally worked at P&G or its related joint ventures and who personally hold, directly or indirectly, equity in listed companies in China or overseas. Only publicly verifiable listed-company shares on the open market are counted, with wealth calculations as of 28 October 2026.

This is a translation from the original Chinese-language press release, which can be found on www.hurun.net.

The Hurun China Rich List 2026 featured 1,529 entrepreneurs, a record number. New quality productive forces, China's term for technology-driven, high-efficiency growth engines, led wealth creation through the year, while structural divergence in the consumer sector deepened. One telling phenomenon on the list deserves closer study: three entrepreneurs with P&G careers made the Rich List this year. Until now, the P&G network has been best known as a circle of top professional managers, rarely appearing at the front of wealth rankings as a group of founders.

Hurun Research has therefore launched the Hurun China P&G Alumni Wealth Top 15. The open-market shareholdings of those ranked are worth over CNY 27bn in total, covering intelligent marketing, new energy, AI chips, biopharmaceuticals and other fields.

Rupert Hoogewerf, Chairman and Chief Researcher of Hurun Group, said:

“This Top 15 is about far more than who has the biggest fortune. It shows how much value this ‘West Point of consumer goods’ keeps sending out into the world. P&G has been perfecting the art of developing people for a century, and any company that wants to understand how to build talent would do well to study it.”

“The secret starts with the brand-management system, which P&G created back in 1931. A brand manager runs the brand like a mini-CEO. They own the whole picture – R&D, pricing, supply chain, distribution, the bottom line – so from day one they’re learning to run a business, not just dream up ad campaigns. Most of the alumni on this list came up through P&G’s Marketing Department, and that’s exactly the training they got. They can walk into a Fortune 500 company as CMO, or they can go out and build something of their own. It’s why the industry calls P&G the ‘cradle of CMOs’. In Spotlight 2025: Chief Marketing Officers in the US, the talent research firm Altrata found PepsiCo and P&G tied for first as former employers of Fortune 500 CMOs.”

“The model arrived in China with P&G in 1988, and for more than thirty years it has produced generation after generation of managers for the local consumer industry. Here’s the interesting part. In America, it turned out world-class professional managers. In China, with industrial upgrading and the startup boom in the mix, it gave people the platform to strike out on their own and build real wealth. That’s the ground this list grows out of.”

“P&G still sits in the very top tier worldwide when it comes to producing talent. One count based on the Fortune 500 found 11 sitting CEOs who started out at P&G, fourth across all industries, behind only McKinsey, General Electric and PepsiCo. The 16 alumni on this list are the latest chapter in that story.”

“Look at where their money actually comes from, and it’s clear these alumni have moved well beyond traditional consumer goods. They’ve pushed deep into intelligent marketing, AI chips, new energy, biopharmaceuticals and a whole range of other fields. The lesson is that the skills P&G builds – reading consumers, positioning a brand, running an organization, taking a product to market – travel. They can be picked up and put to work, and scaled, in just about any setting.”

“The clustering is what really stands out. Three listed companies are home to two or more P&G alumni. DeepZero has Huang Xiaonan and Xie Peng; RLX Technology has Wang Ying and Jiang Long; and Brandmax brings together Liang Dingjiao, Huang Yong and Wu Fang. The shared instincts and the networks they built working side by side are now paying off as they build businesses together.”

“For P&G alumni, carrying those skills across industries and planting themselves in the new growth sectors mean this list has plenty of room to grow. I’d expect to see more of them on the Rich List in the years ahead.”

2026 HURUN CHINA P&G ALUMNI WEALTH TOP 15

Department Distribution

The Marketing Department accounts for nine of the Top 15 places, followed by the Sales Department with three. P&G’s Marketing Department is the vehicle of brand management; in 1931, P&G built on it to invent the modern brand-management system. The core function of the department revolves around brand management rather than the pure placement of advertising.

Brand management at P&G covers consumer insight, product definition, packaging design, pricing, distribution, budget control, profit targets and competitor response, coordinating laterally across R&D, supply chain, sales and finance, and taking responsibility for the brand’s overall profit and loss. The communications, advertising and event-execution work commonly seen in ordinary companies’ marketing departments make up only a small part of P&G’s brand-management system.

Education Background

By education, the ranked alumni are evenly split between northern and southern universities, each contributing eight. The north is led by Peking University, Tsinghua University and Xi’an Jiaotong University. The south covers South China University of Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Nanjing University and Zhejiang University, a more diverse mix.

Wealth concentration at the top universities is particularly striking. Peking University leads with four alumni, whose listed holdings total CNY 13.1bn, or 47% of the list’s total. Tsinghua and Xi’an Jiaotong each have two. Together, the three universities occupy half the places but contribute 90% of the ranked holdings and take all of the top six spots.

Huang Xiaonan and Xie Peng are the most representative pairing on the list. Both are Peking University graduates, new entrants to the Hurun China Rich List 2026 and P&G veterans, whose tenures at P&G overlapped between 1998 and 2000; today they run DeepZero together. Huang, from P&G’s Marketing Department, is DeepZero’s Chairman and CEO; Xie, from the Sales Department, is its co-founder and COO. Ranked first and third with holdings of CNY 7.2bn and CNY 5.1bn respectively, they hold a combined wealth of CNY 12.3bn, 44% of the total.

Sector Distribution

DeepZero, led by Huang Xiaonan and Xie Peng, focuses on AI-driven marketing technology. Chi Yufeng’s business spans gaming, entertainment and education technology. Xue Yansong’s Moore Threads works in AI chips. Qin Lihong is a core figure at NIO in new-energy vehicles. Fang Xing’s Sinexcel is in power electronics and new energy. The list also covers beauty, talent services, biopharmaceuticals, photovoltaics and other niche sectors.

Outstanding Alumni

This business methodology, born in Cincinnati, has made the leap in China from a circle of professional managers to entrepreneurial wealth creation. The presence of three P&G alumni – Huang Xiaonan, Chi Yufeng and Xie Peng – together on the Hurun China Rich List 2026 is a landmark of that trend.

All three built their P&G careers mainly from the 1990s to the early 2000s, as core talent in the early localisation of P&G China. Huang Xiaonan joined Guangzhou P&G in 1997 as an Assistant Brand Manager, receiving the full training of P&G’s brand-management system. Xie Peng joined the Beijing branch of Guangzhou P&G in 1998 as a Regional Sales Manager, gaining experience in distribution and sales operations. As modern hypermarkets such as Walmart and Carrefour entered China, P&G brought in the Multi-functional Key Account Team model from its Arkansas, US, operations with Walmart. Huang moved to Beijing and met Xie while working in the same CBD key-account team.

Their wealth paths differ. Chi Yufeng has made the Rich List more often than any other P&G alumnus, first appearing in 2007 and returning many times; in 2026 he ranks No 396 overall. Huang Xiaonan and Xie Peng are new entrants in 2026, at No 560 and No 820.

After leaving P&G, all three chose cross-sector startups outside traditional FMCG. Huang and Xie co-founded DeepZero, grafting P&G’s consumer insight and brand-operation logic onto intelligent marketing and using technology to rebuild marketing efficiency. Chi moved across gaming and education, building listed companies including Perfect World, Zulong Entertainment and iHuman, and applying the user-operation thinking of FMCG to cultural, creative and education products.

Tracing their paths, all received P&G’s standardized business training early and built a user-centred decision logic. Though their startup sectors differ, the underlying method – refined operations and data-driven decision-making – is the same. Behind the shift from professional manager to founder lies one set of business capabilities reused and amplified across industries.

Beyond the three Rich List founders, several other alumni have realized value in emerging sectors. Wang Ying and Jiang Long are both core members of RLX Technology; the former was a P&G Beauty Care Category Project Manager and the latter a Senior Key Account Manager in Sales, and both have made the Hurun China Rich List through RLX.

Fang Xing, a P&G alumnus, runs Sinexcel in power electronics and new energy, applying FMCG operating thinking to high-end manufacturing. Brandmax Chairman Liang Dingjiao, formerly of P&G’s Marketing Department, is a leading entrepreneur in China’s experience-marketing industry; he made the Hurun China Rich List 2020 with CNY 2.6bn at No 1981. Huang Yong, a former Assistant Brand Manager at P&G, is a core member of Brandmax, working in experience marketing alongside Liang Dingjiao, Wu Fang and other P&G alumni.

Huang Jinfeng, a former Market Research Manager in P&G’s Market Research Department, founded Yatsen and made the Rich List in 2020 and 2021, ranking No 1511 in 2020 with CNY 3.6bn.

Qin Lihong’s career bears out the business logic that ability matters, but timing matters more. From 2001 to 2003 he was an Assistant Brand Manager at P&G, building core skills in brand management and business decision-making through systematic training. After P&G he joined Roland Berger in strategy consulting, then became a sales vice-president at Chery to gain auto-industry experience, and later joined Longfor as CMO and Executive Director during the property upcycle, catching the industry dividend. In 2014 he again timed the window for new-energy vehicles, co-founding NIO with Li Bin and completing a cross-sector leap in value.

In 2003 Dai Kebin joined P&G’s Marketing Department as a Brand Manager, running core brands such as Ariel and Whisper and building solid full-chain operating skills. In 2008 he caught the internet talent-services wave, left to start his own business, and led Liepin to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, making the Rich List several times between 2018 and 2021. Notably, his sister Dai Keying is a serial entrepreneur who has worked at Xueda Education and in venture capital; his brother-in-law, 58.com founder Yao Jinbo, has made the Rich List every year since 2014. Deep family resources and industry connections provided key help in Liepin’s early development.

The alumni’s startup map also extends into biopharmaceuticals, photovoltaic new energy, talent services and other sectors, breaking entirely through the traditional FMCG boundary and confirming the strong industrial adaptability of the business capabilities P&G develops.

Methodology

The Hurun China P&G Alumni Wealth Top 15 covers Chinese entrepreneurs and executives who have formally worked at P&G or its related joint ventures with verifiable careers, and who personally hold, directly or indirectly, equity in listed companies in China or overseas.

The scope covers A-shares, Hong Kong and US public markets, counting only individual holdings verifiable through listed-company announcements, prospectuses, annual reports and other authoritative public materials. Wealth is calculated with a uniform formula: the value of an individual’s open-market holdings is the sum across listed companies of market capitalization multiplied by the individual’s actual economic interest. The research looks through holding entities to confirm actual interests and removes duplication across multi-layered structures; overseas listed holdings are converted into renminbi.

Only publicly verifiable listed equity is counted; unlisted equity, real estate, cash and other private assets are excluded. The benchmark trading date for market capitalization is 28 October 2026, and the latest publicly disclosed shareholding information available at the time of research is used.

About Hurun Group

Hurun Group promotes entrepreneurship through quality lists and research, encouraging entrepreneurship and value creation.

Hurun is best known for its rich-list series, telling the stories of successful entrepreneurs in China and around the world. Other major series focus on young businesses and entrepreneurs, including the Hurun Uth series and the Hurun New Power series.

Hurun has grown into the world’s largest compiler of lists of startups, ranking over 3,000 startups globally through the Hurun Global Unicorn Index (startups worth over US$1bn) and two Hurun Future Unicorn indices: Hurun Gazelles, the startups most likely to become unicorns within three years, and Hurun Cheetahs, those most likely to become unicorns within five years. The Hurun Unicorn Graduates list covers China’s listed companies founded after 2000 and worth over US$1bn.

The Hurun Uth series comprises the U40, U35, U30 and U25 awards, recognizing founders or core figures of businesses worth US$100mn, US$50mn, US$10mn and US$1mn respectively, with a degree of social influence.

The Hurun New Power and young entrepreneur series focus on startups founded in the past decade and founders aged 45 and under.

Other lists include the Hurun 500 series, ranking the most valuable companies in China and the world; the Hurun Global High Schools list; the Hurun Philanthropy List; and the Hurun Art List of the most successful living artists in China and the world.

Hurun is also a leading authority on China’s high-net-worth individuals, tracking their changing profile over the long term. With partners from financial institutions, real estate, local governments and premium lifestyle brands, it has published a series of thematic reports, including white papers with China CITIC Bank, a report on sustainable family wealth with CCB Trust, a healthcare and retirement report with Taikang, and a corporate social responsibility report with Country Garden, as well as the Hurun Best of the Best report on Chinese HNWI brand preferences, running since 2005.

Hurun aims to become the world’s most recognized platform for promoting entrepreneurship, encouraging a positive attitude towards wealth, inspiring people to realize their entrepreneurial dreams, and encouraging entrepreneurs to value culture and social responsibility as they grow their businesses.

Aspiring upward and towards goodness, leading the refinement from wealth to nobility.

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Anna Dai

Editor-in-Chief, Hurun Report

Mobile: 15102103129

Email: anna.dai@hurun.net

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