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Cheng Wei (simplified Chinese: 程维; traditional Chinese: 程維, born 1983) is a Chinese business executive. His English nickname is Will. Will is the Founder and CEO of Didi Chuxing ("DiDi", formerly known as Didi Kuaidi), China's largest comprehensive one-stop mobile transportation platform. In 2012, after 8 years at Alibaba Group's regional and Alipay's operations, at age 29 Will founded Beijing Orange Technology Co Ltd. in Zhongguancun, known as China’s Silicon Valley, and soon launched Didi Dache, a taxi-hailing app. In February 2015, the company merged with Kuaidi Dache, another key market player to become Didi Kuaidi (later renamed Didi Chuxing). In August 2016, Didi Chuxing acquired the Chinese division of Uber.
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Early life and education
Will was born in 1983 in Shangrao, a city located in the southeastern province of Jiangxi. He received a bachelor's degree in administration from Beijing University of Chemical Technology.
Early career
After graduation, Will served as an assistant to a chairman at a foot massage company. He soon found that the job was not quite what he had expected, and, about one year later, applied to join Alibaba as a sales person for its business-to-business e-commerce service in 2005.
In his six years at Alibaba, Will rose to being a sales manager for the northern region of China. Then, he moved to China's largest third-party online payment platform, Alipay, where he quickly gained a reputation as a talented manager despite his age and rose through the ranks to become the company's youngest regional manager.
Didi Chuxing
In 2012, Will left Alibaba and founded Beijing Orange Technology Co and launched Didi Dache - meaning "Beep Beep Call a Taxi" - the initial incarnation of his ride-hailing service. In 2014, he hired Jean Liu(Liu Qing), a former Goldman Sachs Asia managing director as the COO of his company. In February 2015, the company merged with its rival Kuaidi Dache to become Didi Kuaidi (later renamed Didi Chuxing). In August 2016, Didi Chuxing acquired all assets of the Chinese division of Uber, including its brand, business operations and data for operation within mainland China. Under the terms of the deal, Will is set to become a board member of Uber and Travis Kalanick will get a seat on DiDi's board.
Since the company was founded in 2012, under the leadership of Cheng Wei and Jean Liu, DiDi has grown to become one of the world’s highest valued tech start-ups. The company has evolved from a simple taxi-hailing app to become China’s largest one-stop mobile transportation service platform, offering comprehensive mobility solutions for close to 300 million users across over 400 Chinese cities, including taxi hailing, private car hailing, hitch (social ride-sharing), test drive, chauffeur service, bus, car rental service and enterprise solutions.
DiDi has spent three years linking up urban mobility options on its mobile platform. In the next three years, it will use big data and artificial intelligence to maximize the efficiency of all the transportation tools, according to Will.
Will is among those advocating that China needs to focus intensely on AI. Speaking to government officials and administrators in May, he said the first half of the internet age—in which companies raced to connect computing machines with people—has finished. "The second half is about artificial intelligence," he said. DiDi has established a big data research center to focus on AI technologies including machine learning and computer vision, which will optimize its dispatch system and route planning. A few hundred scientists work on the deep-learning technologies. At this stage, Will said that the company is investing a lot of resources in research and is keen to recruit and retain top talent to build its self-driving cars and to make itself become one of the top technology companies in the world.
Other activities
Will has participated in several important conferences and business events:
In September 2015, Will was selected as a Co-Chair of the Summer Davos in Asia: Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2015 and delivered a speech at the forum. At the conference, he discussed how the sharing economy enables traffic resources to be allocated and used in the most effective and efficient way.
In the same month, Will visited the U.S. alongside President Xi Jinping and attended the 8th U.S.-China Internet Industry Forum (USCIIF) hosted by the Internet Society of China and Microsoft. He was the youngest participant in the Forum. Other companies attending the Forum included e.g. Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook on the U.S. side and Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu from China. In an interview with Sina, he said that China has been the new driving force for the development of the Internet industry. Chinese Internet companies now can compete with U.S.counterparts or even outpace them in terms of product and business model innovation.
In December 2015, Will attended the Second World Internet Conference in Wuzhen. During the conference, he discussed the development of Didi Kuaidi's business and his expectation of the industry with President Xi Jinping. He also showed President Xi the big data platform of Didi Kuaidi through which he hopes to provide better services for Chinese citizens.
Books
Will released his book, "DiDi: the sharing economy is changing China", co-authored by Jean Liu and Zhang Xiaofeng, and published by Posts & Telecom Press in June 2016.
Honors
In 2016:
He was named Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year and Forbes Asia’s Businessman of the Year.
He was named by Vanity Fair in its New Establishment List together with Jean Liu.
He was also selected on the Wired 100 List together with Jean Liu.
He was one of the "Top 10 Economic Influencers of China in 2015" recognized by Sina.com.
In 2015:
He was named one of Fortune's Global "40 under 40" List of Chinese Business Leaders, and topped the China "40 under 40" together with Jean Liu.