Background
Chen Feng was born in 1953, Huozhou, Shanxi province, China.
峰 陈
Chen Feng was born in 1953, Huozhou, Shanxi province, China.
After graduating from the Lufthansa Group Air Transport Management College in 1984 Chen went on to study for an MBA at Maastricht School of Management in 1995 and advanced senior management courses at Harvard Business School in 2002.
While a student in school, Chen helped with the establishment of an airline company for the government of Hainan Province, a small tourism-based province in China. The Hainan Province Airline Company launched in 1993 with an initial funding of 10 million RMB ($1.332 million) and was partially sponsored by friends Chen had made on Wall Street, making it the first Chinese airline to attract foreign investment. Chen’s connections to Wall Street acquainted him with big-time investor George Soros who Chen convinced to invest $25 million for 25 percent of the recently renamed Hainan Air (NYSE: HNA). The move brought Chen and his company worldwide attention as a beacon of capitalism in the Chinese communist machine. For the next eight years Hainan Air grew steadily as a provincial airline rarely straying from Hainan. In 2002 Chen faced a daunting challenge when the CAAC announced that it would consolidate its ten airlines into three large firms. With a market share of only 9 percent, Hainan was dwarfed by the giants. But Chen took the competition in his stride, expanding Hainan Air from ‘a regional niche carrier’ to a national airline. The company absorbed regional Chinese carriers to acquire numerous hubs throughout China.
Today Chen’s airline has a fleet of 129 aircraft and is nationally acclaimed. Now the fourth largest carrier in China (behind the three government conglomerates), it has over 500 routes to 90 destinations across the country. Many of these are destinations that the larger airlines neglect and the convenience is greatly appreciated by airline consumers. But the company is best known for its style and service. One can easily spot a Hainan Air jet, as the aircraft bodies are always vividly decorated with colorful flowers or cartoons. At the end of each flight free tickets to any Hainan Air destination are auctioned off. Hainan is not your regular airline by any stretch of imagination. Chen has let supply and demand mold it into an exciting, efficient, high-service corporation. Chen says that his competitors have ‘one family, one system, one boss;’ but his motto is ‘we belong to the public.’ Chen is known in the Chinese business world as a leader with a dynamic person- ality, and has been officially recognized for much of his work, receiving, among others, the National Model Worker award, an award for the top 20 Most Influential Chinese Entrepreneurs in the Last 20 Years and Asia Business Leader of the Year 2005. But his most lasting achievement is his impact: he faced government-run competition with a market-based formula and survived.
Feng is a Buddhist and does not drink or smoke.