Dong Mingzhu

Early life Dong Mingzhu was born the youngest of seven children in a working-class family in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu province, in August 1954.

Career In 1990, at age 36, recently widowed Dong left her three-year-old son to his grandmother and quit her job at the government research facility in order to move to the more economically developed Shenzhen in Guangdong province and to find a new job, but moved to Zhuhai soon. Under her leadership, Gree Electric developed solar energy, China's smartphone market, robotic technology, recycled treatment centers nationwide, and acquired electric car maker Yinlong in March 2016.

In March 2019, she applied a cut on value-added taxes to reach more competitive prices and aim for an aggressive international development despite the US-China trade war going on.

In 2021, Fortune ranked Dong the seventh most powerful international women in the world.

According to Forbes, "Fiscal 2023 was Gree's best year to date, with profits of $4.1 billion, which it attributed to innovation efforts. In its first-ever ESG report, Gree said it owns 44 "internationally leading" technologies, of which 41 are related to green energy." She is a member of the China Democratic National Construction Association, as well as a member of the 10th Executive Committee of All-China Women's Federation. A Straits Times article said "the comment and ensuing uproar point to the mixed attitudes confronting some Chinese who have returned home after spending time abroad."

Personal life Dong married soon after graduating from university, but was widowed when her son turned two years old.

In 2018, law enforcement in Ningbo mistakenly accused Dong of jaywalking because her face was featured in an advertisement on the side of a bus and inaccurately flagged by a facial recognition system.

Published work Regretless Pursuit, 2006, which was made into a television series on China Central Television.