Lihui Zhang is President and a founding member of Caixin Media, one of China’s most authoritative and trusted news organizations specializing in economics, finance, and business. Caixin was the first in China to implement a professional news paywall and now serves 1.2 million digital subscribers, ranking among the world’s top 10 paid media platforms, according to FIPP. Ms. Zhang oversees strategic management, corporate governance, business operations and product innovation, driving sustainable growth. She initiated and leads the Caixin Summit Series, a portfolio of high-level forums held globally to foster dialogue and collaboration between China and the world. As a recognized media leader, she has spoken and moderated at major events including the APEC CEO Summit, World Innovation Summit for Education, AIIB Annual Meeting, and Boao Forum for Asia.
Ms. Zhang is also the Founding Director and Secretary General of the Woodpecker Foundation, a nonprofit supporting professional journalism and social responsibility in China. The foundation has supported nearly 2,000 journalists through programs on gender, intellectual property, climate change, healthcare, and field-reporting grants for natural disaster coverage. Before co-founding Caixin, she held senior positions at New Alliance Consulting International and Caijing Magazine. She holds a master’s degree from Harbin Engineering University and a joint MBA from Fordham University and Peking University.
As an M-RCBG senior fellow, she will research how artificial intelligence is reshaping media ecosystems, focusing on the sustainability of high-quality journalism and solutions to information inequality in a polarized world. Her faculty mentor is Nancy Gibbs, the Edward R. Murrow Professor of Practice of Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School.