Zhong Shanshan on Industry Transition

Zhong dropped out of primary school during the Cultural Revolution and worked in construction, later became a journalist at the Zhejiang Daily, quit in 1988 to move to Hainan where he sold mushrooms, prawns, and turtles, and worked as a sales agent at the Wahaha beverage company before founding his own bottled-water company.

In 1999, Nongfu Spring stopped removing natural minerals from its water, a marketing move that helped differentiate it in a market where distilled water was the norm, and helped the company grow into China's largest bottled-water maker, surpassing Coca-Cola, Watsons, and Pepsi in packaged beverage sales in China.

As of 2025, Zhong had a net worth of $77.5 billion and ranked among the top 25 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, derived mainly from his stakes in the Chinese beverage and pharmaceutical industries (including majority ownership of Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise).