Peng Zhao ( zh, s=赵鹏, p=Zhào Péng, born ) is a

Chinese-American Chinese Americans are Americans of Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans have ancestors from mainland China, Hong Kong ...

businessman who is the CEO of

market making A market maker or liquidity provider is a company or an individual that quotes both a buy and a sell price in a tradable asset held in inventory, hoping to make a profit on the difference, which is called the ''bid–ask spread'' or ''turn.'' Thi ...

firm

Citadel Securities Citadel Securities LLC is an American market making firm headquartered in Miami, Florida. It provides liquidity and trade execution to retail and institutional clients. The firm also trades futures, equities, credit, options, currencies, a ...

. Peng Zhao was born in

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

Education

Zhao was a student of the Talented Children Training Program at Beijing No.8 High School from 1993 to 1997. He earned a bachelor's degree in

applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematics, mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and Industrial sector, industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a ...

from

Peking University Peking University (PKU) is a Public university, public Types of universities and colleges in China#By designated academic emphasis, university in Haidian, Beijing, China. It is affiliated with and funded by the Ministry of Education of the Peop ...

in 2001 and a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a s ...

from

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

in 2006.

Career

Peng Zhao was a summer associate at

Lehman Brothers Lehman Brothers Inc. ( ) was an American global financial services firm founded in 1850. Before filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States (behind Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Merril ...

and was a

quantitative research Quantitative research is a research strategy that focuses on quantifying the collection and analysis of data. It is formed from a deductive approach where emphasis is placed on the testing of theory, shaped by empiricist and positivist philoso ...

er at Evnine & Associates before joining Citadel. Peng Zhao joined Citadel Securities in 2006 as a quantitative researcher. In July 2016, Citadel Securities announced that then Microsoft COO,

B. Kevin Turner B. Kevin Turner (born April 3, 1965) is an American businessman and investor who is the chairman of Zayo Group and the vice chairman of Albertsons/Safeway Inc. During his nearly 20 years at Walmart, Turner rose through the ranks from a store ca ...

, was joining the firm as CEO. At this time a new role, chief scientist, was created specifically for Peng Zhao who was then the global head of

. Five months after joining, Kevin Turner left Citadel Securities, and on January 27, 2017, at age 34, Peng Zhao was promoted to CEO.

Affiliations

Zhao is a director of the National Committee on U.S. China Relations. He is a founding board member of the non-profit advocacy and anti-discrimination group

The Asian American Foundation The Asian American Foundation (TAAF) is an American foundation founded in 2021 by a group of prominent Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. It's stated goal is to support an array of Asian American and Pacific Islander causes and create a nati ...

(TAAF), established in 2021. In 2019, Zhao was named on ''

Fortune Fortune may refer to: General * Fortuna or Fortune, the Roman goddess of luck * Luck * Wealth * Fate * Fortune, a prediction made in fortune-telling * Fortune, in a fortune cookie Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''The Fortune'' (19 ...

's''

40 Under 40 ''Fortune'' magazine's 40 Under 40 is a list of individuals the publication considers to be the most influential young leaders for the year. The list has existed in two phases: From 1999 to 2003, the list was presented purely as a numeric rankin ...

list.

Philanthropy

Zhao and his wife organized a one million surgical mask donation to Chicago's first responders during the

coronavirus pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

in 2020. The couple also supports

Kartemquin Films Kartemquin Films is a four-time Oscar-nominated 501(c)3 non-profit production company located in Chicago, Illinois, that produces a wide range of documentary films. It is the documentary filmmaking home of acclaimed producers such as Gordon Quinn ( ...

, a

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

documentary filmmaking organization, in its efforts to fund filmmakers from the AAPI community through the Zhao-Chen AAPI Voices Fund. They were co-executive producers of the award-winning documentary '' Finding Yingying'', which was released by

. The couple also funds the Victor Wong Fellowship, a program associated with Chicago's Second City, to train and mentor aspiring comedians from the AAPI community. Peng and other founding board members of TAAF committed $125 million to support AAPI organizations and causes at launch. According to ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', it was the single largest philanthropic gift devoted to Asian Americans.

References

External links