Ren Zhengfei, Huawei CEO
Position: 30 Last year: 25
Why? Turning Chinese technology into a global concern
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Zhengfei has fallen a few places in this year's poll but nevertheless remains one of the key figures in the rapidly growing Chinese technology market.
As head of telecoms and networking company Huawei Technologies, he has continued with the firm's transformation into a global giant without the help of a more established Western corporation.
Through the development of its commoditised products, Huawei Technologies made $11bn in 2006 and is becoming a real rival to networking giants such as Cisco and Nortel.
An indication of the ambition that Zhengfei has is the $1.1bn Huawei devotes to research and development every year. Huawei argues that this investment is comparable to Cisco's $4bn R&D budget because of the Chinese firm's far lower labour costs.
Huawei was one of the key suppliers to BT's 21CN network and the two companies are now working closely in China on network technology research.
Take a walk down memory lane - and find out who made the agenda setters poll in years past
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Content featuring Ren Zhengfei
Agenda Setters here include Alibaba.com CEO Jack Ma (11); Huawei Technologies CEO Ren Zhengfei (25) - one spot above rival Cisco CEO John Chambers; and Indian outsourcing leaders S Ramadorai, CEO at TCS, (22) and Nandan Nilekani, CEO at Infosys...
The seventh annual Agenda Setters poll also reveals the rise of Asian tech companies on the global stage with top 50 winners such as Alibaba.com CEO Jack Ma (11), Huawei Technologies CEO Ren Zhengfei, TCS CEO S Ramadorai (22) and Infosys CEO...
Chinese company Huawei is probably the best example of this with CEO Ren Zhengfei making his second consecutive appearance on the list, this year at number 25 - ironically one place above John Chambers, CEO at rival Cisco.
Agenda Setters here include Alibaba.com CEO Jack Ma (11); Huawei Technologies CEO Ren Zhengfei (25) - one spot above rival Cisco CEO John Chambers; and Indian outsourcing leaders S Ramadorai, CEO at TCS, (22) and Nandan Nilekani, CEO at Infosys...
Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei comes in just one spot above Chambers for taking advantage of low costs in China and using massive R&D centres to become the Tesco of networking equipment. Jo Best looks at what this means for the future of the major mobile...
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