Zhang Lei (investor)
Zhang Lei (Chinese: 张磊) is a Chinese investor and entrepreneur. He is the founder, Chairman, and Chief Investment Officer of Hillhouse Capital Management, Ltd.
Early life
Zhang was born in 1972 in Zhumadian, a village in Henan province, in Central China.
As a teenager, Zhang established a business through which he bought and sold magazines in bulk. The magazines he sold published content relevant to the aspirations of Chinese society in 1990 when Deng Xiaoping came to power.
Education and early career
Zhang received a scholarship to Renmin University of China, where he received his B.A. in Economics in 1994. In 2002, he received an MBA and M.A. in International Relations from Yale. Zhang translated David Swensen's book, Pioneering Portfolio Management, An Unconventional Approach to Institutional Investment (2000), into Chinese while in school and created new Mandarin words for "endowment" and "fiduciary." During his studies, Zhang also worked at the Yale University Endowment. Zhang is also a Chartered Financial Analyst. He was an investment analyst for a global emerging markets fund that covered South Africa, Southeast Asia and China. After this, he was the chief representative to China for the New York Stock Exchange and he established their Hong Kong and Beijing offices.
