Editor：Yesterday, co-founder of Binance He Yi was selected as one of the Global Outstanding Leaders by Fortune, and a reporter from Fortune also conducted an exclusive interview with He Yi. In this in-depth interview, He Yi shared her story of growth, leadership philosophy, and the "user-first" culture she has promoted and upheld at Binance. She also talked about the challenges and responsibilities faced by the co-founder of a global leading crypto company at the forefront of the industry.

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In the 1980s, when He Yi was a little girl, she needed to draw water from a well and sometimes relied on oil lamps for lighting. Times have changed dramatically. He Yi is now a celebrity in the hearts of millions of Chinese people and has become a billionaire with a 10% stake in Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange. As a co-founder and executive of Binance, she has significant influence within the company. However, her life has not been easy.

Another co-founder of Binance, CZ, was imprisoned in the United States last year due to a $4.3 billion plea deal. This situation brought significant business challenges to Binance and He Yi personally. For He Yi, CZ's imprisonment was a painful experience because CZ was not only the CEO of the company but also the father of her young children.

Now, Binance has overcome the difficulties. CZ has completed his sentence. The plea deal that CZ accepted caused a blow that could have paralyzed most companies, yet Binance remains the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world. He Yi played a crucial role in Binance's development. After years of operating behind the scenes, she is now stepping into the spotlight to publicly manage Binance.

In this rare interview, He Yi told Fortune about her journey from a poor rural girl to a cryptocurrency billionaire, the trials she experienced during Binance's crisis, and her vision for the industry that is rapidly changing the global financial system.

Chief Customer Service, Down-to-Earth

Throughout He Yi's life and career, she has overcome many obstacles, one of which was learning English. It wasn't until four years ago, when she was in her thirties, that she began learning English. During a long Zoom interview, He Yi performed well, only occasionally turning to her translator when she struggled to explain a Chinese idiom or proverb.

He Yi understands the power of communication. At Binance, she is known for her outstanding marketing and customer service skills, which helped Binance become the largest exchange in the world within a year. To this day, she takes pride in listening to the opinions of Binance customers on platforms such as Telegram, X, WeChat, and any other place where Binance customers might be found, and she insists that others at Binance do the same. She requires every new employee at Binance to work in the frontline of customer service for several weeks, a rule that is well known.

During the interview, He Yi spoke about a recent incident involving a college student who mistakenly sent $500 worth of cryptocurrency to the wrong wallet, a common error in the crypto community that typically means the funds are unrecoverable. However, He Yi took the time to track down and recover the misdirected funds. She recalled the student telling her, "These funds are just a drop in the bucket for you, but they are everything to me."

He Yi said that given her upbringing in a poor family in Sichuan, she can relate to these experiences. She lost her father at the age of nine and sold soft drinks outside a supermarket when she was sixteen. Although she eventually got into university (pausing to recall the joy of walking into a library for the first time) and became a TV host, she said that her background meant she could still connect with many of Binance's lower-income customers.

He Yi's story evokes the song "Jenny from the Block" by Jennifer Lopez, which tells the story of a beautiful woman who maintains a down-to-earth attitude even after achieving success—precisely the type of story Americans love.

However, Eowyn Chen, CEO of Trust Wallet, a crypto company, said it is not the case in China. Eowyn Chen believes that Chinese people are less inclined to support the underdog and more likely to mock those who surpass their own status. He Yi often becomes the target of articles and social media satire that try to belittle and ridicule her, but her response is to return the negative comments back to those who spread them.

She told people, "Of course, I came from a poor background, but I am successful. Why can't you?"

He Yi has been named "the most powerful woman in crypto" by Bloomberg, climbing to the peak of the blockchain world with her intelligence, perseverance, and confident and bold personality—qualities she shares with her co-founder and lover CZ.

Building Binance

When CZ founded Binance in 2017, he established a distinct public image with the name "CZ," which is now widely recognized. CZ shaped the "CZ myth" through taking great risks (such as selling his house in Shanghai in 2014 to buy more Bitcoin) and actively participating in daily jokes in the online community known as "crypto Twitter."

In the early days of Binance, CZ invited He Yi to join, but He Yi had recruited CZ a few years earlier, convincing him to join OKCoin (now OKX) as Chief Technology Officer in 2014. Both were passionate about cryptocurrencies, but they also had other similarities. CZ and He Yi both grew up in cold schoolhouses without heating. CZ's father emigrated to Canada, gradually improving their situation. CZ worked minimum wage jobs at Chevron and McDonald's during high school. CZ also tended to retaliate against those who mocked his background, even sharing meme images of himself wearing a Golden Arches uniform on Twitter.

It was during her time at OKCoin that the two became a couple and gained experience running a large-scale cryptocurrency business. Now, this pair, who have never married but remain in a romantic relationship, work closely together as parents and business partners. According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, He Yi and CZ jointly own YZi Labs, the venture capital division of Binance, and hold at least a 10% stake in the parent company.

Regarding her relationship with CZ, He Yi requested anonymity and provided a written statement: "My personal life is separate from my professional life. As a co-founder, my achievements and capabilities are often questioned because of my personal life," she wrote, while also emphasizing that Binance has 280 million users.

Regardless of how this relationship is perceived on a personal level, it has proven to be very effective on a professional level. He Yi's role at Binance is roughly equivalent to Sheryl Sandberg's at Facebook. Sandberg helped build the company in its early days and helped the then-inexperienced CEO Mark Zuckerberg find his footing.

In practice, this means that CZ plays the role of Binance's legendary spokesperson and product visionary, while He Yi drives Binance's significant growth through active promotional activities (including giving away cars). Her approach is popular among overseas Chinese communities and people within China. In China, although cryptocurrency is banned in some aspects, it is still very popular, partly because it is an easily transferable asset that is not subject to government regulations.

An anonymous Binance employee described He Yi as a demanding boss, but she also supports her employees and speaks up for those around her. When discussing Binance's daily operations, He Yi said that the company's core principle is "founder culture," a term used in the tech industry to describe companies that retain the spirit of their early startup days.

For Binance, its early development was partly due to its willingness to quickly bypass regulations and frequently move from one country to another under government scrutiny. While this strategy drove Binance's remarkable growth, it sometimes became the company's biggest weakness—this very issue led to the loss of its most outstanding founder.

Post-CZ Era

By early 2023, the situation had become increasingly severe. The previous year, after FTX, owned by SBF, collapsed, the U.S. government intensified efforts to introduce policies targeting the cryptocurrency industry, especially focusing on Binance, the largest participant in the industry. For years, the company's lawyers had been negotiating various charges with the Department of Justice, but in the end, a deal was reached.

In September 2023, U.S. regulators announced a comprehensive settlement agreement that not only required Binance to pay a fine of up to $4.3 billion (the largest such fine in corporate history), but also forced CZ to step down as CEO of Binance and admitted that he had failed to implement adequate anti-money laundering measures. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal and Reuters cited multiple unnamed sources, stating that regulators also tried to force He Yi to leave Binance. ('The plea deal between Binance and U.S. regulators is public,' the company spokesperson said.)

Despite suffering heavy blows to its finances and leadership, two years later, under the leadership of CZ's successor Richard Teng, Binance remained the largest cryptocurrency exchange to date. Richard Teng, a former senior regulatory official in Singapore, helped Binance implement a series of compliance measures and shaped a new image showing that the company had moved away from its early fast and loose tactics. In January of this year, Binance took an important step forward—introducing a formal board structure, including seven members and three independent directors, including Richard Teng.

Nevertheless, a former employee of the company told Fortune that Binance's power is still held by early executives (CZ, He Yi, and two other early Binance executives Lilai Wang and Wei Zhou). The employee added that He Yi has the final say on all personnel issues and the greatest power in customer experience decisions. At the same time, Binance's spokesperson stated that this claim is inaccurate, saying that the company's culture encourages employees to exercise a high degree of autonomy.

Meanwhile, a founder of a venture capital firm described Binance as a company run with an iron fist, despite facing new legal restrictions and the challenges of operating a large global business, it still holds the position of market leader. This assessment seems to be supported by data recently provided by CoinGecko, which shows that despite the emergence of new competitors, Binance still holds the largest share of trading activity—39% of centralized exchange trading volume in June.

For He Yi, Binance's continued dominance is a testament to her "user-first" strategy and the company's founders' personal belief in the transformative power of cryptocurrency—she believes the technology is as transformative as the emergence of the internet was to traditional media and television.

He Yi predicts that cryptocurrency will accelerate the penetration of traditional financial systems through stablecoins and other blockchain technologies, and in the next five to ten years, the two fields will achieve full integration.

On a personal level, He Yi says that the widespread adoption of cryptocurrency feels like another major technological change she has experienced since her teenage years, when her home had no electricity or running water.

Regarding her journey, He Yi quoted a proverb by Xi Murong: "If you've said it's good, don't say it hurts anymore."

Original Title:How Binance’s Yi He became ‘the most powerful woman in crypto’—and steered the company past its biggest ordeal

Original Author: JEFF JOHN ROBERTS, Fortune