---
title: "Outshining Dong Mingzhu! He Is the No. 1 CEO in Manufacturing, Worth Billions Yet Still Eating Instant Noodles While Working Hard"
description: "A photo of Hengan Group CEO Xu Lianjie eating instant noodles at an airport recently went viral on social media. Despite being in his 60s, he maintains the energy of a 30-year-old, exemplifying hard work. As a grassroots business guru, he outranks even Dong Mingzhu in the manufacturing sector."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2017-03-20"
language: "en"
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# Outshining Dong Mingzhu! He Is the No. 1 CEO in Manufacturing, Worth Billions Yet Still Eating Instant Noodles While Working Hard

> A photo of Hengan Group CEO Xu Lianjie eating instant noodles at an airport recently went viral on social media. Despite being in his 60s, he maintains the energy of a 30-year-old, exemplifying hard work. As a grassroots business guru, he outranks even Dong Mingzhu in the manufacturing sector.

Recently, a photo of Hengan Group CEO **Xu Lianjie** eating instant noodles at an airport went viral on many people's social media feeds.
**When hungry, a box of instant noodles; when tired, a quick nap. Non-stop, day and night. In his 60s, but with the vigor of a 30-year-old.**
As the boss of a leading industry enterprise, business guru Xu Lianjie sets a great example of what it means to roll up one's sleeves and work together.
**Grassroots Business Guru, Outshining Dong Mingzhu**
There is not much information about Xu Lianjie online, but that does not stop him from being a legendary entrepreneur of his generation.
**When it comes to Fujian and Quanzhou businessmen, Xu Lianjie is an unavoidable name.**
He is the CEO of Hengan Group. In the recent "China's Best 100 CEOs" list by Harvard Business Review, **Xu Lianjie was named the No. 1 CEO in manufacturing, even surpassing the internet-famous entrepreneur Dong Mingzhu.**
He is a "grassroots business guru." In just over 30 years, he grew a small village factory into a paper products group with an annual output value exceeding 10 billion yuan and a market value exceeding 100 billion yuan.
He is a "startup mentor" to countless people. Even Fuyao Glass chairman Cao Dewang has publicly stated that Xu Lianjie deeply influenced his entrepreneurial career.
**Even as such a successful entrepreneur, he remains non-stop, day and night.** When hungry, a box of instant noodles; when tired, a quick nap.
Xu Lianjie's assistant, Chen Fapei, explained that at the time, Xu and his team were waiting for a flight at Nanning Airport in Guangxi. Due to severe flight delays, and having gotten up early and traveled continuously for days, the president was likely exhausted. He dozed off in the waiting area, then had a simple instant noodle meal while continuing to wait for the flight to take off.
"I was deeply moved at that moment and casually took two candid photos of the president."
**While you are wasting time, how many people are working hard?** What reason do we have to slack off?
**Piece by Piece: Xu Lianjie's First Pot of Gold**
In fact, looking back at Xu Lianjie's entrepreneurial journey from scratch, there is no shortage of such gripping stories.
Before founding Hengan Group in 1985, Xu Lianjie was just a farmer in Jinjiang, Fujian Province, China.
As a child, his family was very poor, so poor that they often had no food. They didn't even have a bed; three brothers slept on the floor with a dozen others in an ancestral hall.
Xu Lianjie did not finish elementary school, but he never shied away from mentioning his education in front of the media.
After dropping out, he started selling small items. He sold eggs, grains, ran transport, and ran a garment factory. These small businesses made him resilient and patient, skilled at discovering business opportunities in "small things."
**In this way, piece by piece, Xu Lianjie accumulated his first pot of gold.** Unlike many, his so-called "first pot of gold" was not obtained overnight but through years of accumulation.
**Promoting Sanitary Napkins in the 1980s, Facing Countless Cold Shoulders**
Xu Lianjie said, **"One of my strengths is that I can see future trends and always have a sense of crisis."**
After the reform and opening-up, Jinjiang saw a wave of entrepreneurship.
At that time, every household in Jinjiang ran small garment factories without their own brands, earning only processing fees. Xu Lianjie also established Hengan and entered the garment industry.
But **Xu Lianjie believed this path had no future and was determined to switch industries.**
Inspired by a friend, he thought of entering the sanitary napkin market.
At that time, the sanitary napkin market was undeveloped. Although sanitary napkins were popular in developed countries and had been used for decades, in China, no one knew what they were—not even women, let alone men.
But **Xu Lianjie was not worried about the lack of market; his business logic was simple and clear:** "When making any product, the key is whether there are repeat customers. If there are repeat customers, there is a market. One customer tells two, two tell three..."
He always believed that this product was convenient, hygienic, and comfortable, and would surely have market prospects.
However, **in that conservative era, promoting sanitary napkins brought Xu Lianjie immense pressure and embarrassment, as one can imagine.**
Xu Lianjie and four male salesmen worked together, but after a month, no one was interested, and their first deal, worth several thousand yuan, ended in fraud.
Finally, a few months later, 100 boxes of goods consigned to the Guangdong Provincial Department Store sold out, and the sales of Anle sanitary napkins gradually opened up.
**Self-Revolution: Persuading 41 Founding Members to Retire**
Thanks to the rapid industry growth and Hengan's timely entry, the transformed Hengan developed quickly.
But **the most glorious times often signal the coming crisis.**
With such a good business, who wouldn't want in? Around 1992, there were four to five thousand registered manufacturers nationwide, and countless unregistered mom-and-pop shops.
In response, Xu Lianjie decided to benchmark against Japan's Kao Corporation and invested all his assets in equipment upgrades.
Thanks to advanced equipment, Hengan's products always stayed ahead. Hengan spent over 100 million yuan to import world-leading production lines from Italy, launching the high-end wing-type sanitary napkin "An'erle," which was on par with the world.
Xu Lianjie often joked that the founding team had "no intellectuals." He said, **"What does a person who didn't finish elementary school rely on? On learning through practice, constantly learning."**
It is this belief that **makes Xu Lianjie fond of 'self-revolution.'**
In 1995, after a period of rapid growth, Hengan hit a bottleneck, with sales hovering around 1 billion yuan.
To find a breakthrough, Xu Lianjie chose to go public.
At the time, many original shareholders were against it because the company was highly profitable, and they didn't want to dilute their equity. Some shareholders hoped to delay the listing by two years.
But Xu Lianjie was firm. He said that management had hit a bottleneck, with key positions occupied by relatives and friends, making it hard to sever emotional ties. Without a transparent operating system, professional talent couldn't join, and the company's business couldn't develop.
**There was much controversy, but Xu Lianjie overrode objections, and the company finally went public.**
Listing required many conditions, such as avoiding relatives in key positions. Hengan had dozens of founding members, and in the first half of 1999 alone, it persuaded 41 of them to retire, including Xu Lianjie's own uncle.
**Always having a sense of crisis and the courage for self-revolution—perhaps this is Hengan's greatest business secret.**
**In His Business Philosophy, Endless Stories of Integrity**
In Xu Lianjie's business philosophy, there is a key word—**integrity.**
At age 13, Xu Lianjie dropped out of school to do small business. On the day he first left home, his father told him: "In business, be honest. Don't make promises you can't keep. Credit is inexhaustible. If a person has credit, they can do business even without capital."
**Xu Lianjie firmly remembered these words and adhered to them in his dealings for decades.**
Because of his long-term commitment to promises, Xu Lianjie always earned the trust and support of business partners, and his business went smoothly.
In the year he switched to sanitary napkins, because sales hadn't opened up and banks wouldn't lend to private enterprises, he owed workers' wages by year-end.
So Xu Lianjie went to former friends and business partners to borrow money. Whenever he asked, friends would generally be generous.
At that time, there was no collateral or IOUs; what everyone recognized was a reputation for integrity. Integrity was a "golden signboard."
Xu Lianjie said, **"Integrity is a cumulative process; the longer it accumulates, the higher its value. It's not hard to be honest in one matter, but it's very difficult to keep every promise for a lifetime."**
After decades of entrepreneurship, Hengan International has long sailed from shallow waters to the deep sea.
Whenever he talks about the rough-and-tumble founding team, this man nearing 70 still shows a hint of pride on his face.
-END-


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