2026 Hurun Women Entrepreneurs List released: The total wealth of China's top 50 female entrepreneurs reached a record high of 1.93 trillion yuan

The Zhitong Finance App learned that on October 28, Hurun Research Institute released the “2026 Hurun Female Entrepreneurs List”. The total wealth of the top 50 Chinese female entrepreneurs on this list reached 1.93 trillion yuan, a record high; the average wealth was 38.6 billion yuan, which also set a new record; the threshold for the list was 16.5 billion yuan, up 500 million yuan from last year. From a long-term perspective, the total wealth of female entrepreneurs currently on the list has risen 2.5% compared to 5 years ago, more than double that of 10 years ago. The average age of the top 50 female entrepreneurs is 60, the same as last year, and 3 years younger than the average age of the top 50 male entrepreneurs. Among the female entrepreneurs on the list, 65% started from scratch and 35% inherited wealth. 31% of corporate business directly targets consumers (such as Wahaha, Xiaohongshu, Haitian, etc.), accounting for a 4% drop compared to last year.

Zhou Qunfei, 56, from Lansi Technology in Changsha, Hunan, became the richest woman in China for the second time in 11 years with a fortune of 127 billion yuan. Her wealth increased by 17 billion yuan (+15%) over last year, up 1 place from last year.

Sun Hung Kai Kwong, 97, ranked third with $96 billion, up 2 places from last year.

The AI boom is driving the PCB industry chain. The wealth of Hongren Wang Sihan, a copper clad plate manufacturer from Taiwan, increased by 55 billion yuan (+224%) to 79.5 billion yuan. For the first time, it reached the top ten, ranking sixth. Wang Xin, 53, of PCB drill manufacturer Dingtai Hi-Tech is the new face with the highest ranking, directly dropping to 7th place with 76.5 billion yuan.

Nine new faces include Ou Yang of optical component manufacturer Tianfu Communications, mother and daughter Zou Yonghang (41.5 billion yuan), Li Cuixin (38.5 billion yuan) of chip design company MediaTek, and 40-year-old Ho Yi (18.5 billion yuan) of cryptocurrency exchange Binance. Ho Yi is the youngest self-made female entrepreneur on the list.

Hu Run, Chairman and Chief Research Officer of Hurun Group, said, “For the second time, Zhou Qunfei became the richest woman in China. When she first climbed to the top in 2015, Lansi Technology had just gone public. She was an iconic figure in the smartphone supply chain; 11 years later, she returned to the top of the list with AI hardware, smart car displays, and smart glasses. Over the past 20 years, there have been eight women who have topped this list — Yang Huiyan ten times, Zhang Yin three times, Wu Yajun and Zhou Qunfei each, and Chen Lihua, Kwong Siu-ching, Zong Fuli, and Zhong Huijuan once each. The industry behind them has moved all the way from packaging, real estate, pharmaceuticals, and beverages to electronics. The change in the title of the richest woman just reflects the transformation of the Chinese economy itself.”

“The wealth pattern of female entrepreneurs has changed dramatically — more than 70% of women entrepreneurs on this year's list were not on the list ten years ago, and the new wealth is concentrated in the fields of outsourced manufacturing and life and health. These are now global businesses: Wang Laichun's Lixun Precision's overseas revenue last year exceeded 280 billion yuan, Zhou Qunfei's Lansi Technology exceeded 40 billion yuan, and Zeng Fangqin's Lingyi Intelligent Manufacturing exceeded 37 billion yuan. Together, these three companies employ more than 650,000 employees worldwide: Lixun Precision alone has more than 150,000 employees outside of mainland China, most of which are in Vietnam; Lansi Technology has a large-scale production base in Vietnam; and Lingyi Intelligent Manufacturing's factories in Vietnam, India, and Brazil are mainly operated by local employees. For this generation of female entrepreneurs, going overseas is no longer a strategy — it's a business itself.”

“With the rise of the AI boom, the domestic PCB board-related industry chain ushered in a structural boom. The biggest beneficiaries in this list of female entrepreneurs were Hongren Wang Sihan from Taipei, who entered the top ten for the first time; Wang Xin of Dingtai Hi-Tech from Dongguan also ranked 7th for the first time; Zhuo Jun, who lives in Hong Kong, and Huang Xiaofen, who lives in Shenzhen, are also representative figures in the industry. The three companies cover the PCB manufacturing, processing consumables, and base materials, which fully demonstrates the logic of AI computing power driving the growth of the entire PCB industry chain.”

“Two-thirds of the female entrepreneurs on the list started from scratch. On average, they started a business at age 32. The average age this year was 59, and they currently have an average wealth of 36 billion yuan. The youngest self-made female entrepreneur on the list is 40-year-old Ho Yi of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, with a wealth of 18.5 billion yuan; the other self-made entrepreneur is Xiaohongshu, 41, Qu Fang, with a fortune of 34 billion yuan. Both are post-85. There are also two post-90s entrepreneurs on Hurun's 100 Wealth List: 32-year-old Lu Jianxia and her husband Han Yulong co-founded Manner Coffee with a fortune of 7 billion yuan; Wang Shuo, 35, founded the human resources payment platform Deel in the US and has a wealth of 11.5 billion yuan, but the wealth of these two has not reached the threshold of entering this year's list of female entrepreneurs.”

“One-third of the female entrepreneurs on the list come from inheritance. On average, they took over at age 40. The average age this year was 61. Currently, they have an average wealth of 40.7 billion yuan. Among them, Wang Sihan of Hongren ranked sixth on the list with a wealth of 79.5 billion yuan. Together with her father Wang Wenyang, she is in charge of Hongren's business. Affected by the surge in demand for PCB boards driven by the AI boom, her wealth also rose accordingly. Wahaha's Zong Fuli ranked fifth on the list with a wealth of 83.5 billion yuan; after her father Zong Qinghou passed away, her succession process experienced many twists and turns. Mindray's Jane Yao ranked 40th on the list with a wealth of 19.5 billion yuan; after her divorce from Mindray's co-founder Xu Hang in 2020, she got about one-third of the shares held by the other party.”

“This year we are publishing the Women Entrepreneurs List for the 21st time. We've been talking about Chinese female entrepreneurship for 20 years — since 2006, when Zhang Yin became the first and only self-made richest woman in China, Chinese women entrepreneurs have always been the strongest group of female entrepreneurs in the world. China accounts for 20% of the world's population, but out of the world's 150 self-made female billion-dollar entrepreneurs, China ranks 78th, more than the rest of the world combined. This data comes from the “2026 Hurun Global Self-Made Female Entrepreneurs List”. There are more than 560 female entrepreneurs on the 100 richest people list this year, accounting for more than 23%. In the next 20 years, the share of Chinese female entrepreneurs in the world will still be this high. why? Look at the backup power — in the “2026 Hurun Global Unicorn List”, about 10% of the world's 1,603 unicorns have female co-founders. Women account for 6% of the unicorn founders. New faces on the future list will come out of this group of people. I hope the stories of the female entrepreneurs on the list will bring some inspiration to everyone and pass on the entrepreneurial spirit of Chinese female entrepreneurs; I also hope that more female entrepreneurs will have firm confidence and actively participate in scientific and technological innovation and high-quality development.”

“This list definitely leaves out quite a few women. The wealth of male entrepreneurs is actually overestimated: judging from equity holdings, apparently the shares are registered in the name of male entrepreneurs, but in reality their wives should enjoy some of the rights. If you look at Jeff Bezos's' 73 'wealth sharing ratio after his divorce with Mackenzie, the spouses of the top entrepreneurs on Hurun's 100 Wealth List this year all theoretically have quite impressive wealth: Zhang Yiming's wife is about 200 billion yuan, Zhong Yuyi's wife Lu Xiaoping and Ma Huateng's wife are all about 100 billion yuan, and Huang Zheng's wife Zhang Ying, Ma Yun's wife, is about 60 billion yuan.”

Top ten

The threshold for the top ten places on this list is 54 billion yuan. Looking at the main business, four of the top ten are from industrial products. The rest are distributed in chemicals, construction engineering, food and beverage, life and health, metal minerals, and real estate. The industry structure is becoming more and more diverse.

Zhou Qunfei, the 56-year-old founder of Lansi Technology, topped the list with 127 billion yuan (increase of 17 billion yuan, an increase of 15%), up 1 place from last year; Mrs. Kwok Siu-hing, the 97-year-old founder of Sun Hung Kai, rose to third place with 96 billion yuan (increase of 13 billion yuan, +16%). The top 12 new faces are related to the AI industry chain: Hongren Wang Sihan (daughter of Wang Wenyang) used the AI boom to drive demand for high-end PCB boards, and her wealth increased by 55 billion yuan (+224%) to 79.5 billion yuan, ranking sixth; Wang Xin, 53, of Dingtai Hi-Tech ranked 7th with 76.5 billion yuan, the highest ranking female entrepreneurs of the year. Another outstanding performer was Hengli Fan Hongwei, whose wealth increased by 25 billion yuan (+63%) to 65 billion yuan, and jumped 6 places to 8th place in the ranking. The remaining top ten are Lixun Wang Laichun with 90 billion yuan (fourth, flat), Wahaha Zongfuli's 83.5 billion yuan (fifth, down 2 places), Lingyi Zhizao Zeng Fangqin 56 billion yuan (ninth, down 3 places), and Wei Qiao's startup Zhang Hongxia 54 billion yuan (tenth). Her 50-year-old sister Zhang Yanhong ranked 11th with 53 billion yuan.

Wealth growth

The wealth of 26 female entrepreneurs increased year-on-year, and 9 of them were newly listed.

The outbreak of the AI wave has driven the development of the PCB industry. Wang Sihan of Hongren's wealth increased by 55 billion yuan to enter the top ten; Wang Xin of Dingtai Hi-Tech first entered the list with 76.5 billion yuan to join the top ten; and Jingwang Electronics's Huang Xiaofen joined the list with 21 billion yuan. In the field of AI data, Yangjie Technology's Liang Qin was newly listed with 17.5 billion yuan.

Thanks to cooperation with Nvidia, Tianfu Communications's European and Zou Yong aircraft carriers first appeared on the list for 41.5 billion yuan; MediaTek Li Cuixin, which was invested by Nvidia, was newly listed for 38.5 billion yuan.

On the high-end manufacturing circuit, the wealth of Fan Hongwei, who has performed well in the shipbuilding industry, rose by 25 billion yuan; Lansi Technology's Zhou Qunfei's wealth rose to the top by 17 billion yuan; the explosion in domestic photoresist demand led Zhang Ning of Tongcheng New Materials to join the list with 24.5 billion yuan.

In the traditional industry sector, Yu Tong Packaging's Wu Lanlan was newly listed with 20.5 billion yuan; Hisco Fan Xiulian and Yang Fei's mother and daughter were newly listed with 20 billion yuan, and their core products steadily ranked first in the intravenous anesthesia market; Kuang Xiaoqing's wealth in the real estate industry increased by 13 billion yuan; and the wealth of Qufang of Xiaohongshu, a social networking platform with greatly improved profitability, rose 15 billion yuan.

Top 5 Wealth Growth

New listeners

Decline in wealth

The wealth of 35 female entrepreneurs has shrunk or remained flat, and 11 of them fell off the list.

Hanson's wealth shrunk by 17 billion yuan, a decrease of 12%; Wu Yajun's wealth of Longhu shrank by 14 billion yuan, a decrease of 25%, and declined one after another after reaching a peak of 110 billion yuan in 2020; Zeng Fangqin's wealth of Lingyi Intelligent Manufacturing shrunk 13.5 billion yuan, a decrease of 19%, but it is still nearly 50% higher than two years ago.

Eleven female entrepreneurs made the list: Chen Lihua of Fuhua, Guo Meilan of Dongyang, Jian Jun of Meike, Yang Xia of Jinbo Biotech, Zhou Xiaoping of Xingyu Co., Ltd., Luo Yi of Hesheng, Li Haiyan of Haidilao, Guan Yamei of Tongwei, Shu Ping of Haidilao, Wang Gu Yizhen of Dechang Electric, and Lin Huiying of Bourne Optics.

Place of residence

In terms of place of residence, Hong Kong ranked first with 7 people on the list, followed by Shenzhen (5), and Beijing, Shanghai, and Foshan (3 each). Dongguan, Taipei, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Guangzhou, Binzhou, and Langfang each have 2 places. In the distribution of the top 50 male entrepreneurs, Hong Kong ranked first with 9 people on the list, Hangzhou and Shenzhen each tied for second place with 5 places, and Beijing and Shanghai ranked fourth with 4 places each.

birthplace

In terms of birthplace, Guangdong businessmen (8) and Soviet businessmen (6) are leading, while Hong Kong (4) is in third place.

industry

Seven female entrepreneurs of industrial products — Zhou Qunfei of Lansi Technology, Wang Laichun of Lixun Precision, Zeng Fangqin, Dingtai Hi-Tech Wang Xin, Jingwang Electronics Zhuojun and Huang Xiaofen, and Hengli Hydraulics Qian Peixin — are mostly foundry and component manufacturers deeply embedded in Apple's supply chain for a long time, and are now benefiting from demand for AI, electric vehicles and robots, and are shifting production capacity to Southeast Asia in the context of increasing export difficulties to the US. In the field of life and health, 2 are from innovative drugs (Hansen Zhong Huijuan, Hisco Fan Xiulian, Yang Fei's mother and daughter), 2 from Biotechnology (Huaxi International Zhao Yan, Zhongsheng Pharmaceutical Zheng Xiangling, mother and daughter Xie Qirun), and 1 from medical devices (Mindray Jian Yao). The energy sector is dominated by batteries: Luo Jinhong of Everweft Lithium Energy and Chen Qiongxiang of the Ningde Era are benefiting from the boom in electric vehicles and energy storage, as well as natural gas distributor Xinao Zhao Baoju.

Related fields

Entrepreneurs related to the AI field account for 10%, high-end equipment 8%, new energy 6%, Web3 accounts for 4%, and social media and new materials account for 2%.

Start from scratch or inherit wealth?

The share of self-made female entrepreneurs reached 65%, which is basically the same as last year. They either started their own businesses from scratch, such as Wang Laichun of Lixun Precision, Zeng Fangqin of Lingyi Intelligent Manufacturing, Wu Yajun of Longhu, or co-founded businesses with their husbands, such as Fan Hongwei of Hengli, Luo Jinhong of Everweft Lithium Energy, and Wang Xin of Dingtai Hi-Tech. Of the top 50 male entrepreneurs, 80% started from scratch.

The proportion of those on the list who inherited wealth was 35%. They either inherited wealth, such as Wahaha's Zong Fuli, Country Garden's Yeung Wai-yin, or as widows or seen as owning part of her husband's wealth, such as Sun Hung Kai's Kwong Siu-hing, Yongjin's Chan Kam-xia, and Seashell's Zhu Yan. Among the top 50 male entrepreneurs, 20% inherited wealth. The Zheng Jiachun family ranked first in inheriting wealth with a wealth of 165 billion yuan.

Genealogy

Among the top 50 female entrepreneurs, pigs are the most numerous, with 8; followed by snakes and tigers, with 5 each. Dragons, horses, dogs, cows, and sheep each rank 4; mice and monkeys each rank 3; chicken and rabbit rank last, with only 2 places each. Among the top 50 male entrepreneurs, rabbits are the most numerous, with 9, followed by pigs with 7.

Social media influence

Overall, the top 50 female entrepreneurs are rarely involved in the self-media field. Zhang Xin of SOHO is the female entrepreneur with the most individual fans, with over 9.5 million fans. Among the top 50 male entrepreneurs, Xiaomi's Lei Jun has great social influence. He has more than 20 million fans personally. In addition, Binance's Zhao Changpeng also has 10 million fans overseas.

Compared to five years ago, ten years ago, fifteen years ago, twenty years ago

This year, the top five female entrepreneurs were distributed in four different industries. Two of them were engaged in industrial products, while the rest came from healthcare, food and beverage, and real estate, showing diversified development trends.

Among the top five 20 years ago, women entrepreneurs in the industrial manufacturing category occupied three seats (Zhang Yin — paper, mother and daughter of Lu Hui and Chen Ningning — steel trade; Yang Wenying's family — mobile phone industry chain); since then, the number of people on the real estate industry has continued to rise — women entrepreneurs working in real estate reached 4 places in the top 5 15 years ago, and 3 places five and ten years ago.

Historical data

The average wealth of the top 50 female entrepreneurs in 2026 was 38.6 billion yuan. This is the highest value since the list was founded 21 years ago, slightly exceeding the previous peak of 37.7 billion yuan in 2021. This year, Zhou Qunfei became the richest woman in China for the second time in 11 years. She is also one of the eight richest women in China since the list was founded 20 years ago.