“Modesty” starts with Huawei
At the time of her arrest, Huawei was the world’s second-largest smartphone manufacturer after Samsung Electronics. Since then, it has climbed to 44th in the Fortune Global 500 ranking, with revenues of US$136 billion in the most recent fiscal year.
Ren, 76, a former engineer of the People’s Liberation Army, founded the company in 1987 with a few thousand dollars and developed it into one of the world’s leading telecommunications network hardware suppliers.
Meng tried to emphasize her “humbly” background. Chinese media reported that she had written an internal memo, claiming that her first task at the Shenzhen company was secretarial work-answering phone calls and typing.
But she went on to earn a degree in management and later joined Huawei’s finance department.
According to Chinese media reports, Meng Wanzhou has kept her head down for many years, so that few people know who her father is. This may be because she has followed her mother’s surname since she was a child, and the reason is not clear.
“He is the CEO at work and the father at home,” Meng Zeng said when talking about Ren Zhengfei, emphasizing ability, not personal connections, to determine a person’s path in Huawei.
In the interview, she referred to him as “President Ren” instead of “father.”
