William (Wenwei) Xu

Founder & Chair of GIO;

Professor at the Research Center for Technological Innovation Strategy, Fudan Development Institute, Fudan University;

Former Executive Director of the Board at Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., and member of the Executive Management Tear

William (Wenwei) Xu is a protessor and doctoral supervisor in Business Administration at the Research Center for Technological Innovation Strategy, Fudan Development Institute, Fudan University. He also serves as Deputy Director of the Strategic Advisory Committee for New Engineering Development at Fudan University.

In addition, he holds several concurrent positions, including Deputy Director of the Expert Committee of the China Semiconductor Industry Association; Member of the 7th Education Committee of the Chinese Academy of Engineering; Member of the Strategic Advisory Expert Committee of the Greater Bay Area National Center of Technological Innovation; Adjunct Chair Professor at the School of Microelectronics of Southern University of Science and Technology; and Protessor of Management Practice at the Guanghua School of Management, Peking University and the School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University.

Previously, William was an Executive Director of the Board at Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., and a member of the Executive Management Team. He played a pivotal role in Huaweis growth from a startup in China to a major global company, contributing to its globalization and strengthening. William held several key positions, including Founding President of HiSilicon, President of Huawei Europe, Founding CEO of the Enterprise Business Group, and Founding Director of the Institute of Strategic Research. He has extensive practical experience in R&D, marketing, international business expansion, and corporate strategy development. In 2022, he was awarded the Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation Award for Scientific and Technological Innovation (Industrial Innovation Award). Professor Xu earned his Ph.D. in Management from the University of Hong Kong.

William's research focuses primarily on corporate innovation management and technological innovation strategies. Drawing from successful corporate practices, his work systematically examines the essence of innovation, innovation principles, the driving forces of corporate innovation, and the cultivation of an innovation culture.

He has distilled and summarized the intrinsic logic of corporate success, contributing to the development of corporate innovation theories and methods that bridge practice and theory, with theoretical insights guiding practical applications. In the past five years, William has published three academic monographs, one SCI paper as a corresponding author, four SCI papers as a co-corresponding author, and two papers in domestic core journals. He has also led one national-level research project.