Charles Chao or Guowei Chao ()has served as the chairman of the board of directors since the inception of Weibo Corporation. He has served as the chairman of the board of directors of Weibo's parent company, SINA, since August 2012, and has been SINA's Chief Executive Officer since May 2006.He served as SINA's President from September 2005 to February 2013, Chief Financial Officer from February 2001 to May 2006, Co-Chief Operating Officer from July 2004 to September 2005. He also served as SINA's Executive Vice President from April 2002 to June 2003 and Vice President, Finance from September 1999 to January 2001.

Education

Chao holds a B.A. in journalism from

Fudan University Fudan University () is a national public research university in Shanghai, China. Fudan is a member of the C9 League, Project 985, Project 211, and the Double First Class University identified by the Ministry of Education of China. It is als ...

in Shanghai and a Master's in Professional Accounting from the

McCombs School of Business The McCombs School of Business (McCombs School or McCombs) is a business school at The University of Texas at Austin, a public research university in Austin, Texas. In addition to the main campus in Downtown Austin, McCombs offers classes outsid ...

The University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

Career

Chao joined Sina in 1999 when the company was facing difficulties in its attempts to get a listing on the

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

. He overcame this challenge by establishing Sina as a VIE (Variable Interest Entity) company, which cleared the way for a successful listing in the US. Since then, he has served as Sina's Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Chief Operating Officer (COO) and President in September 2005, and finally chairman of the board and CEO in 2011. He is the first chairman and CEO in company's history. In 2009, he helped launch

Sina Weibo Sina Weibo (新浪微博) is a Chinese microblogging ( weibo) website. Launched by Sina Corporation on 14 August 2009, it is one of the biggest social media platforms in China, with over 582 million monthly active users (252 million daily acti ...

, which has gone on to achieve great success. Chao has also made use of the company's platform to support public welfare undertakings in China. Currently, Sina is one of the largest venues for making donations and emergency fundraising and is one of the first internet companies to set up a charity and public welfare platform. Now, Sina has established Yang Fan Public Welfare Fund, which will enable the company to participate more effectively in charity and public welfare causes.

Work history and other roles

Prior to joining Sina, Chao served as an audit manager at

PricewaterhouseCoopers PricewaterhouseCoopers is an international professional services brand of firms, operating as partnerships under the PwC brand. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounting ...

, LLP, an accounting firm. Prior to that, Chao was a news correspondent at Shanghai Media Group. Chao is currently the Chairman of Weibo Corporation, a leading media company, Co-chairman of E-House, a real estate services company, and a director of NetDragon Websoft Inc., a company providing technology for online gaming and a director of Leju Holdings Ltd., an online-to-offline (O2O) real estate services provider in China.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chao, Charles Living people Chinese chief executives 1961 births Fudan University alumni Businesspeople from Shanghai Sina Corp people 20th-century Chinese businesspeople 21st-century Chinese businesspeople PricewaterhouseCoopers people