Early Life
Forrest Li Xiaodong was born in Tianjin, China, in 1977 or 1978. He earned a Bachelor of Engineering from Shanghai Jiaotong University and later pursued an MBA at Stanford Graduate School of Business. During his time at Stanford, he was inspired by Steve Jobs' commencement speech, which motivated him to become a startup founder.
Rise to Success
After graduating from Stanford, Li moved to Singapore, where he founded Garena in May 2009. Initially, Garena was an online gaming platform. Under Li's leadership, the company expanded rapidly and launched Shopee in 2015, which became a leading e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia. In 2017, Garena was rebranded as Sea Limited. Sea Limited went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2017.
Key Business Strategies
Li's key strategies included leveraging technology to build asset-light businesses and expanding into e-commerce and digital financial services. He secured exclusive publishing rights for popular games like League of Legends in Southeast Asia, and later expanded into e-commerce with Shopee, which gained market share through affordable pricing and free shipping. Sea Limited's success has been driven by its focus on gaming, e-commerce, and digital financial services, positioning it as a key player in fintech across emerging markets.
Philanthropy
While the exact amounts are not available, Li has been recognized for his philanthropic efforts. Sea Limited donated S$50 million to the National University of Singapore's School of Computing for research and education in artificial intelligence and data science.