In July of 2020, Colin Huang stepped down as CEO of Pinduoduo, giving his place to the company’s former chief technology officer, Chen Lei. The two have worked together for over 13 years, with Chen being one of Pinduoduo’s founding members.
From a young age, Chen excelled at computer science and even went on to compete and win at the International Olympiad in Informatics in 1996 and 1997. He then conducted his studies at the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing, majoring in computer science. Postgraduate studies brought Chen to the United States where he earned a PhD in computer science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the same school where Colin Huang earned his master’s degree.
After college, Chen completed several internships at major tech firms like Yahoo, IBM, and Google. From 2007, he came back to China where his career has been closely linked with Colin Huang and his various startups.
To learn more about Chen Lei and his work at Pinduoduo, check out our profile video:
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