Li Xiting (; born 1951) is a

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of v ...

-born

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

an billionaire

business magnate A business magnate, also known as a tycoon, is a person who has achieved immense wealth through the ownership of multiple lines of enterprise. The term characteristically refers to a powerful entrepreneur or investor who controls, through perso ...

and

philanthropist Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the Public good (economics), public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private goo ...

. He is the co-founder, president and co-CEO of

Mindray Mindray Medical International Limited () is a Chinese multinational medical instrumentation manufacturer based in Shenzhen, Guangdong. Mindray designs and produces medical equipment and accessories for both human and veterinary use. The company is ...

, China's largest medical equipment manufacturer.

Early life and education

Li was born in a rural village of his family name in

Dangshan County Dangshan County () is a county in the far north of Anhui Province, China. It is under the administration of Suzhou city. It is famous for fruits (pear, peach, plum and watermelon). Administrative divisions Dangshan County administers 13 towns an ...

Suzhou Suzhou (; ; Suzhounese: ''sou¹ tseu¹'' , Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Soochow, is a major city in southern Jiangsu province, East China. Suzhou is the largest city in Jiangsu, and a major economic center and focal point of trad ...

Anhui Anhui , (; formerly romanized as Anhwei) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the East China region. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze River ...

, China in 1951. Li graduated from the

University of Science and Technology of China A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which rou ...

with a bachelor's degree in

low temperature physics In physics, cryogenics is the production and behaviour of materials at very low temperatures. The 13th IIR International Congress of Refrigeration (held in Washington DC in 1971) endorsed a universal definition of “cryogenics” and “cr ...

Career

Between 1976 and 1987, Li worked as a researcher assisting scholars at institutes in

Wuhan Wuhan (, ; ; ) is the capital of Hubei Province in the People's Republic of China. It is the largest city in Hubei and the most populous city in Central China, with a population of over eleven million, the ninth-most populous Chinese city a ...

Hubei Hubei (; ; alternately Hupeh) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, and is part of the Central China region. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The pr ...

and France, where he was a visiting scholar at

Paris-Sud University Paris-Sud University (French: ''Université Paris-Sud''), also known as University of Paris — XI (or as Université d'Orsay before 1971), was a French research university distributed among several campuses in the southern suburbs of Paris, i ...

in the early 1980s. Li's first attempt at entrepreneurship was at Shenzhen Anke High-tech Company in

Shenzhen Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major Sub-provincial division, sub-provincial city and one of the Special economic zones of China, special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pea ...

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020 ...

, a partially state-owned enterprise set up by the

Chinese Academy of Sciences The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); ), known by Academia Sinica in English until the 1980s, is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for natural sciences. It has historical origins in the Academia Sinica during the Repub ...

(CAS) in the 1980s. The company would arguably become China's very first home-grown developer of medical devices, and launched the nation's first magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner in 1989. Li founded medical equipment manufacturer

in Shenzhen 1991 with

Xu Hang Xu Hang (born 1967) is a Chinese billionaire business magnate and philanthropist. He is the co-founder and co-CEO of the Shenzhen-based multinational medical instrumentation manufacturer Mindray Medical International. Xu Hang holds a BA degre ...

and Cheng Minghe (). Li secured Mindray's first contract, a 360,000-

yuan Yuan may refer to: Currency * Yuan (currency), the basic unit of currency in historic and contemporary mainland China and Taiwan ** Renminbi, the current currency used in mainland China, whose basic unit is yuan ** New Taiwan dollar, the current ...

sale, at a medical equipment convention in the 1990s. Mindray listed on the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed ...

in 2006, raising US$270 million. In 2016, Li and the other two co-founders of Mindray took the company private in US$1.9 billion deal. Li moved to Singapore, and became a naturalised citizen in 2018. During the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

, it was estimated that Li's net worth was increasing by US$1 billion every month as Mindray's stock price increased due to high demand for

ventilator A ventilator is a piece of medical technology that provides mechanical ventilation by moving breathable air into and out of the lungs, to deliver breaths to a patient who is physically unable to breathe, or breathing insufficiently. Ventilators ...

s. In April 2021, ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

'' estimated Li's net worth to be US$21.5 billion, making him the richest man in Singapore.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Li, Xiting 1951 births Chinese businesspeople China University of Science and Technology alumni Living people People from Dangshan County