Martin Lau

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Martin Lau
刘炽平
President
Personal details
Nationality	Chinese
Education	University of Michigan, Stanford University, Northwestern University

Martin Lau (Born 1971) is a Chinese businessman, President and Executive Director of Tencent.

Born in Beijing, China, Lau grew up in Hong Kong and enrolled in University of Michigan, earning a B.A. in electrical engineering. He joined Goldman Sachs and worked on Tencent's IPO before joining the company in 2005 as the chief strategy and investment officer. In 2006, he became president of the company and an executive director of the board in 2007. As of June 2022, Lau's net worth was estimated at US $2.3 billion.

Early Life

Martin Lau was born in Beijing and moved to Hong Kong at a young age. After graduating from the University of Michigan, Lau earned a Master's degree at Stanford University as well as an MBA from Kellogg at Northwestern University. After working at McKinsey and Goldman Sachs, Tencent CEO Pony Ma offered Lau the position of chief strategy officer in 2005. In 2006, Lau was promoted to President of the Company to manage the day-to-day operation of the Company. In 2007, he was appointed as an executive director of the Company.

Career

Lau adopted U.S. corporate practices and established social media and digital media businesses within the company. Under his leadership, Tencent developed WeChat, an instant messaging and social media app that became the world's largest standalone mobile app in 2018. He also expanded the company internationally and has forged a digital partnership with the NBA since 2015. Most notably, he developed a unique business strategy that allows portfolio companies to operate autonomously. He leads Tencent's investments, which include video game makers Riot Games (100%), Supercell (81%), and Epic Games (40%). By January 2020, more than 70 of Tencent’s 800 portfolio companies had gone public and more than 160 of them surpassed $100 million in valuation.

In 2017, Lau was named among Bloomberg 50 Most Influential People.

In early 2021, Tencent's shares plummeted after approaching a valuation of US$1 trillion. Amid China's tech crackdown, Lau commented, "there will be short-term uncertainties ... but we are pretty certain that we can be compliant and over the long run these will actually position the industry for healthy growth – and we will be the beneficiary of that.”

Boards

Lau also sits on the board for several companies, including Kingsoft and DiDi. He also sat on the board of JD.com and stepped down in 2021 following Tencent's distribution of JD.com shares.

Personal Life

Lau currently resides in Hong Kong with his wife and two children. The highest-paid-executive of Hong Kong-listed companies, earning 313.47 million yuan (46 million USD) in 2018, Lau became a billionaire for the first time in 2017.

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