Flying Unicorns, Hidden Dragons: 20 CKGSB Alumni Leading China’s Most Influential Companies

Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business’ (CKGSB) report, “Flying Unicorns, Hidden Dragons”, tracks down the school’s 20 most influential alumni who are founders, co-founders, or CEOs of unicorn companies in China valued at USD $1 billion or more.

The report traces the stories of CKGSB’s former students, such as how Jack Ma went from an English teacher to becoming the founder of Alibaba, Fu Chengyu from an oilfield laborer to Chairman of Sinopec, and Li Dongsheng who took China’s manufacturing industry global with TCL.

In the 20 articles that span the sectors of e-commerce, healthcare, logistics, private equity, retail, and technology, the report investigates the background of each alumnus, how they launched their businesses and their journeys to success with their companies.

The report not only offers an insight into how internationally well-known companies such as Alibaba and Pinduoduo were launched, it also investigates the business models of some of China’s most innovative startups such as FlashEX, SoYoung, and Ximalaya FM.

The report reflects CKGSB’s mission to educate and develop a new generation of economic disruptors, especially unicorn and unicorn-to-be companies, with a renewed and enhanced focus on global responsibility, social purpose and a long-term perspective. Many alumni in the report are at the forefront of sustainable sectors, such as energy storage, medical devices, and fitness.

CKGSB is the first business school to set up an ecosystem that focuses on unicorn and unicorn-to-be companies since 2015 in China in partnership with prominent companies, such as Alibaba, JD.com, Tencent, ByteDance and leading venture capitalists. This ecosystem has developed more than 1,000 founders and co-founders of companies with Series A financing to more mature start-ups, including 38 unicorn companies listed on CB Insights (2017-2022).