Peter Chan

In 1984, Zhang Ruimin took the post as Director of Qingdao Refrigerator Factory – predecessor of Haier, thus starting the prologue of Haier’s entrepreneurship. Through 31 years of development, with his innovative entrepreneurial spirit and advanced strategic decision-making in conformity with the trend of the times, he has turned a small collectively-owned factory with a 1.47m Yuan loss into a global enterprise with global turnover of 188.7b Yuan (2015). In 2015, Haier achieved a global turnover of 188.7 billion yuan, and a total profit of 18 billion yuan with a 20% year-on-year growth; the online trade volume reached 157.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 188%. According to the 2015 world's major home appliances survey data from Euromonitor, Haier tops Global Major Appliance Brand rankings with No. 1 retail volume for seventh consecutive year. In 2015, Haier entered the list of World Brand Top 100 and was ranked No 1 in the global white goods industry.

In the management practice, Zhang integrates the essence of China’s traditional culture with western modern management concept, insisting on “taking in everything, growing innovatively and having one’s own style”. His innovative management philosophies and exploration has provided the global management circle with business models and cases fitting with the times and also forged highly competitive Haier culture. From OEC management of "accomplish what's planned each day and improve on what's accomplished the previous day", to "Market Chain" management having everyone facing the market, to the win-win model of Rendanheyi in the Internet age, Zhang Ruimin has won worldwide appreciation from the global management for his relentless innovation. The case of "Haier Culture Activating Stunned Fish" made its way into the case library of Harvard University and Zhang Ruimin became the first Chinese entrepreneur giving speech in Harvard.