As Shein heads towards IPO, its Chinese billionaire founder stays under cloak of secrecy
- Even by the standards of Chinese tech business leaders, the lack of public information about Xu Yangtian is unusual
While it has become a trend in recent years for tech entrepreneurs in China to keep a low profile, the lengths that the Shein CEO – also known as Sky Xu or Chris Xu – has taken to avoid personal publicity stand out among his peers.
The company has never published any photos of him. Neither has he made any public speeches throughout his career, even as Shein became an increasingly familiar e-commerce brand around the world. Shein has not released any IPO prospectus or details about its business operations.
According to multiple people who worked with Xu, the Chinese billionaire has decided to stay away from the limelight because of his personality and the belief that any attention drawn to him could only add to the scrutiny faced by Shein.
“Ordinary, quiet, humble” – that was how Liu Mingguang, a supply chain adviser for Shein from 2015 to 2021, described Xu. The unassuming image, however, belies how much of a quick learner he was, Liu said.
In the early days of Shein, Xu and Henry Ren Xiaoqing, the firm’s head of supply chain management, reached out to Liu through a mutual contact to pick his brains on how to source clothing from Chinese wholesalers to sell abroad and use software to manage a large number of orders. “He just listened quietly and didn’t say much, only starting discussions after the training was over,” Liu recalled.
Several former and current employees at Shein told the South China Morning Post that the wiry, bespectacled Xu often goes unnoticed by staff in the office.
