Richard Liu Qiangdong is a Chinese Internet entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Beijing-based JD.COM, which according to Fortune, ranks as the world’s 11th largest retailer and is also the third largest e-commerce site in China, behind Alibaba and Amazon.

Richard Liu was born in Jiangsu Province, China, in 1975. He graduated from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, where he earned a degree in computer science and applied mathematics. In 1998 he received an MBA from Yanshan University, which was only five years old, having been started by former Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang.

Liu Qiangdong began his career as a technology consultant for the Chinese government before co-founding JD.COM in 1998, along with 17 other investors, including Qiangdong’s uncle Liu Guogeng. His inspiration for starting the company, which initially sold computer parts and other electronics, came when he ordered a replacement telephone handset and was charged $200 for overnight shipping – which would have been free if he had bought the handset locally. JD.COM was later listed on NASDAQ in 2004 under the ticker JD. Liu stepped down as CEO in 2013 but remained chairman of the company.

In 2004, Richard made one of his earliest large-scale philanthropic efforts when he donated $100 million to establish the Beijing Jingmei School, an experimental all–Chinese language school that aims to serve as a model for education reform. The school was closed in 2005 after it failed to attract enough students to be financially sustainable. It had been described as “a high school for the children of China’s new wealthy” and was the focus of much media attention when it first opened.

In 2008, Liu became a member of the World Economic Forum (WEF), and in 2012 he served as an adviser to Vice President Xi Jinping during his tenure as China’s Vice President. In 2013, Liu gave a speech at the WEF Annual Meeting entitled “China’s New Economy and Its Economic Impact on International Markets.”

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