According to multiple people who worked with Xu, the Chinese billionaire has decided to stay away from the limelight because of his personality and the belief that any attention drawn to him could only add to the scrutiny faced by Shein.
“Ordinary, quiet, humble” – that was how Liu Mingguang, a supply chain adviser for Shein from 2015 to 2021, described Xu. The unassuming image, however, belies how much of a quick learner he was, Liu said.
In the early days of Shein, Xu and Henry Ren Xiaoqing, the firm’s head of supply chain management, reached out to Liu through a mutual contact to pick his brains on how to source clothing from Chinese wholesalers to sell abroad and use software to manage a large number of orders. “He just listened quietly and didn’t say much, only starting discussions after the training was over,” Liu recalled.
Several former and current employees at Shein told the South China Morning Post that the wiry, bespectacled Xu often goes unnoticed by staff in the office.
As is common in the Chinese tech industry, employees at Shein like to share memes based on their boss. But since there are no available photos of Xu – the CEO’s internal profile picture consists of the slogan “if you have dreams, you are remarkable”, overlaid on a generic natural landscape – those memes are made up of text only.
A consultant who worked for Xu and declined to be named to protect his business relationships, said the entrepreneur finds more value in getting things done than feeding his ego. “He basically sees no point in exposing himself to possible questioning,” the consultant said.
Shein declined to comment on this story.
Despite his hard-fought attempt at secrecy, public scrutiny on Xu, who reportedly obtained permanent residency in Singapore as part of Shein’s efforts to soften its perceived ties with China, has only increased. It is unknown whether Xu continues to hold a Chinese passport.
Shein’s executive chairman Donald Tang said at a Milken Institute conference in Los Angeles last month that the company can be seen as Chinese, as it was born in China and still maintains many employees and suppliers there. But he said it can also be regarded as Singaporean because it is registered there, and American because its biggest market is the US and the business follows American values.
Shein is trying to play down those comments over concerns that they could displease Chinese authorities and potentially derail its IPO plans, according to a report by the Financial Times over the weekend.