The Billionaire Who Built Shein
By Kelli Luu | 02 Jul, 2026

While entrepreneur Chris Xu has stayed out of the spotlight, his company Shein has become one of the fastest-growing fashion brands in the world.

Chris Xu is one of the industry’s most mysterious CEOs who quietly built Shein into one of the world’s largest fashion retailers. 

He was born in Shandong, China, in 1984 and attended the Qingdao University of Technology. After graduation, Xu began working in search engine optimization, helping Chinese manufacturers sell products overseas through Google search. With the knowledge he gained from working in SEO, Xu had a strong understanding about visibility on the internet and how that can benefit brands. 

In 2008, Xu launched his very first e-commerce business in Nanjing where he was able to experiment with selling everything from porcelain teapots to electronics, but it didn’t take long for him to realize that fashion had the highest demand. Chris Xu founded SheInside in 2011. The site initially specialized in wedding dresses before expanding into women’s fashion completely and rebranding the company name to Shein, the name now recognized internationally. 

What made Shein stand out was its data-driven business model which monitors trends and consumer behavior to identify what will sell. Instead of mass producing many pieces at once, Shein tests small batches, sometimes even as few as 100 items, to gauge demand and if it performs well, they will produce more. 

This model led Shein to become the world’s largest fashion retailer by 2022, surpassing popular brands like H&M and Zara. In 2024 Shein reported around $38 billion in revenue, making Chris Xu one of the wealthiest entrepreneurs in fashion, with an estimated net worth of $6 billion according to Forbes’ 2026 Billionaires List. 

Over the years, Shein has faced controversy and criticism regarding labor conditions, copyright infringement, and environmental issues, but the company has put out responses saying they have strengthened their supplier oversight and invested in sustainability initiatives. 

Even with these controversies, Chris Xu managed to keep a low profile and still emerged as a major influence in the ecommerce industry. By combining social media marketing and data analytics, he was able to build a company that changed how clothing is designed, produced, and sold.