Meet Teresa He: the Huawei executive with the hottest seat in tech
- She serves as president at HiSilicon, the wholly owned semiconductor company of Huawei
Teresa He Tingbo, president of HiSilicon, has emerged in the spotlight after she recently described the preparations made by the wholly owned semiconductor company of Huawei Technologies to continue operations, despite the trade ban imposed by the US government.
She revealed in a company memo on May 17 that HiSilicon had devoted significant resources for many years to a backup plan that would ensure the survival of the group, which was put under a trade blacklist a day earlier by the US Department of Commerce. Shenzhen-based Huawei and 70 of its affiliates have been barred from buying hardware, software and services from American hi-tech suppliers without US government approval.
Before that memo became widely circulated online in China, He was hardly known to the public even though she is one of the top three female executives in the world’s largest telecommunications equipment supplier.
The two other senior female executives in Shenzhen-based Huawei are Chen Lifang, president of public affairs and communications, and chief financial officer Sabrina Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of company founder Ren Zhengfei. Meng was arrested in Canada in December and is out on bail while awaiting possible extradition to the US.