Dong Mingzhu on Business Philosophy

Dong Mingzhu — founder profiled in the Chinese Founder Ledger — is documented as follows: widowed at 36, she left her young son with his grandmother, moved to Guangdong, and joined Gree's predecessor company as an air-conditioner saleswoman in 1990, rising to president by 2001 and chairwoman by 2012, building Gree from an air-conditioner maker into a conglomerate spanning smart equipment, industrial robots, and new energy. The profile is grounded in the 2 sources indexed for this founder.

As of the April 2025 Yicai report, under Dong's 13 years as chairwoman (and 35 total years at the company), Gree had transformed from an air-conditioner maker into a conglomerate spanning smart equipment, industrial robots, and new energy, with annual revenue exceeding CNY 200 billion (approximately USD 27.4 billion).

Sent to a poor province, Anhui, Dong produced one-eighth of Gree's annual sales in her early sales role, which caught the attention of Gree's first general manager Zhu Jianghong; she rose to head of sales by 1994, deputy president by 1996, president by 2001 (per Yicai, 2007), and chairwoman by 2012.