Interestingly, for a long time, when the outside world mentioned Li Ke, the first thing they thought of was “Wang Chuanfu’s wife.” But inside and outside BYD, her more accurate identity positioning is undoubtedly the pioneer and helmsman of BYD’s overseas business, and the core promoter of BYD’s globalization strategy. Li Ke’s story almost runs through BYD’s development history.

Text丨Financial Gossip Female Special Author: Jiu Shu

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BYD announced on September 29 that after deliberation, the board of directors agreed to elect Wang Chuanfu as chairman of the company’s ninth board of directors, with a term of three years, starting from the date of review and approval by the board of directors until the expiration of the term of the ninth board of directors. This means that Wang Chuanfu will continue to lead the new energy giant as the “helm” at the critical stage when BYD is accelerating its move to the global stage.

When it comes to BYD, as the well-deserved “overlord” in the global new energy vehicle field, its development history is often deeply tied to its founder Wang Chuanfu. Over the years, Wang Chuanfu’s strategic thinking and quotations about the industry have never been lacking in the automotive industry. His image as a “technical madman” has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people along with BYD’s independent innovation and market development process.

What is not well known is that there is a female character behind Wang Chuanfu. She has a vital “influence” both on Wang Chuanfu himself and on BYD. She is Li Ke.

Interestingly, for a long time, when the outside world mentioned Li Ke, the first thing they thought of was “Wang Chuanfu’s wife.” But inside and outside BYD, her more accurate identity positioning is undoubtedly the pioneer and helmsman of BYD’s overseas business, and the core promoter of BYD’s globalization strategy.

From going overseas alone with $30,000 to now leading BYD’s business layout in more than 120 countries and regions around the world, Li Ke has spent nearly 30 years writing a legend of China’s automobile overseas.

1./ From small workshops in Shenzhen to global supply chain/

Li Ke’s story almost runs through BYD’s development history.

In 1996, Li Ke was a top student who graduated from Fudan University majoring in statistics. She worked as an advertising sales manager at “Asia Resources” and had major clients such as Huawei and TCL. Her monthly income reached 20,000 to 30,000 yuan in the 1990s. In an era when the average monthly salary of urban workers in China was only a few hundred yuan, this income was enough for her to live a comfortable life.

But Li Ke made a decision that everyone around her couldn’t understand. She chose to join BYD, a small company that had just been established for one year and was engaged in “hand-rubbed batteries” in Longgang, Shenzhen.

The starting point of this decision was a chance encounter. At the Shenzhen Communications Exhibition, Li Ke received a flyer from BYD outside the exhibition hall, which clearly stated “China’s No. 1 Nickel-Cadmium Battery Factory.” She was surprised: Since it is the number one in the industry, why doesn’t it even have a regular booth? Driven by curiosity, she visited BYD on the spot. Facing a private house with two bedrooms and one living room, the general manager’s office, finance, administration, and sales are all crowded together. BYD in its early stage is obviously a bit difficult to describe.

However, after seeing Wang Chuanfu’s endless talk about battery technology and his ambition to be the world’s largest electronics factory, Li Ke chose to join BYD and soon showed his amazing business talent.

In 1996, when she first joined the company, she negotiated a 43 million yuan order from Motorola, which opened up BYD’s reputation in the field of mobile phone batteries.

In 1999, Li Ke went overseas with only 30,000 US dollars and a container of batteries, starting BYD’s overseas journey. She called customers during the day, packaged products at night, and visited streets on weekends, building BYD’s overseas business system from scratch. In the third quarter of 2002, BYD began to supply lithium-ion batteries to Nokia. By around 2005, it had firmly ranked among Nokia’s top two battery suppliers in the world. In addition, BYD began to win battery orders from Motorola in 2000, and BYD’s battery business is booming.

However, Li Ke’s ambitions go beyond batteries. During her cooperation with Nokia, she keenly discovered the huge customer demand for mobile phone components such as casings, buttons, and flexible circuit boards. As a result, she pushed BYD to spin off its mobile phone parts business independently. In 2007, BYD Electronics was successfully listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

This step laid a key foundation for BYD’s future industrial layout across the three major fields of batteries, electronics, and automobiles.

2./ She has carried BYD’s overseas banner/

In building cars, Li Ke also played an important role in BYD’s development.

In the early years, when BYD chose to build cross-border cars, almost everyone was not optimistic about it. It was also Li Ke who stood up and took up the banner of taking cars to sea. The first thing she did was to break the inertial thinking of Chinese car companies to change the market at a low price. Instead of making cheap cars, she wanted to make new energy vehicles with leading technology.

In 2010, BYD established an electric bus factory in the United States. This was the first time a Chinese car company built a factory in the United States. The Lancaster factory not only created hundreds of local jobs, but also gave BYD electric buses a market share of more than 80% in the United States. Under Li Ke’s leadership, BYD has gradually completed the leap from the B-side to the C-side, promoting the company’s overseas strategy to form a pattern of “Latin America leading, Europe breaking through, and Asia and the Pacific flourishing”.

It is worth noting that during the development period of the United States, Li Ke contributed to one of the most iconic events in the history of BYD’s development – Buffett’s investment in BYD.

In 2002, Li Lu, the founder of Himalaya Capital, met Wang Chuanfu for the first time through Li Ke, head of BYD’s overseas business, paving the way for Berkshire Hathaway’s future investment. In September 2008, under Li Lu’s strong recommendation, Buffett subscribed for 225 million H shares of BYD at HK$8 per share, for a total amount of approximately HK$1.8 billion. This investment later brought a return of approximately 38 times to Berkshire, becoming one of the most successful cases in Buffett’s investment history.

Outside of the U.S. market, BYD’s outstanding performance in many regions around the world is inseparable from Li Ke.

For example, in Brazil, BYD’s layout is particularly eye-catching. BYD has invested up to 5.5 billion reais (equivalent to RMB 7.1 billion) in its passenger car factory in Camasari, Bahia, with a planned production capacity of 150,000 vehicles and is expected to create 20,000 local jobs. In July 2025, the factory will complete the first vehicle rolling off the production line. To this end, Brazilian President Lula met with Li Ke in El Salvador and said in subsequent public events: “This factory is the rebirth of people’s dignity.” Lula also revealed that he “had doubts at the beginning” about BYD’s development in Brazil, but two years later, she achieved all her goals.

In Europe, Li Ke’s layout for BYD is even more profound. According to the latest media reports, BYD’s first European passenger car factory in Hungary has entered the initial production stage, and it is expected that a second European factory will be selected before the end of this year. Alta Vera, BYD’s European consultant, made it clear that in the long term, BYD needs three assembly plants and a battery plant in Europe to support business growth and meet EU rules.

In September this year, Li Ke visited the Menarini bus factory near Avellino, Italy, to evaluate the location of the new production base in Europe. She also made it clear:

“In the long term, everything we sell in Europe will be produced here.”

3./ “Fuel vehicles have no future”, a Chinese woman’s industrial judgment /

If Li Ke’s influence within the company is reflected in BYD’s overseas business performance and the identity of Wang Chuanfu’s wife, then outside BYD, what made her truly widely known for the first time was the assertion that “fuel vehicles have no future.”

In September this year, Li Ke said something that shocked the industry in an interview with the media: “In China, with the popularization of BYD’s flash charging technology, I think fuel vehicles have no future. This is very clear.” She also pointed out that the electrification transformation in other parts of the world may take several years, but the final outcome is the same. She also revealed that BYD plans to launch models equipped with solid-state batteries in 2027. When talking about autonomous driving technology, she even publicly promised: “If you have any accidents while driving autonomously, BYD will pay all costs.”

Obviously, the basis for this judgment is the impressive performance of BYD and the overseas business that Li Ke is responsible for.

In 2025, BYD’s annual revenue exceeded the 800 billion mark for the first time, reaching 803.965 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.46%; net profit reached 32.619 billion yuan, R&D investment of 63.4 billion yuan, and cash reserves reached 167.8 billion yuan.

In terms of sales performance, BYD’s annual sales in 2025 will exceed 4.6 million vehicles, ranking among the top five global automakers in terms of sales for the first time, and retaining the title of global new energy vehicle sales champion. Among them, BYD’s overseas sales reached 1.05 million vehicles, a year-on-year increase of about 145%, and overseas revenue reached 310.741 billion yuan, accounting for 38.65% of total revenue.In the first half of 2026, BYD exported 792,300 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 67.8%. Its new energy vehicle business has covered 121 countries and regions on six continents around the world.

Li Ke’s contribution has also received substantial recognition. According to BYD’s 2025 annual report, Li Ke ranks first among the company’s executive salaries with an annual salary of 14.261 million yuan, surpassing Wang Chuanfu’s 8.139 million yuan. In 2025, she won the “World Automobile Person of the Year” at the New York International Auto Show, becoming the first female winner in the history of this award and the first winner from a Chinese automobile brand.

In September 2026, Li Ke was selected into Fortune’s list of China’s most influential business women. Fortune’s evaluation of her is:

“Li Ke has been responsible for BYD’s overseas business for a long time and is a key promoter of the company’s shift from product exports to local production, channel construction and brand management.”

In terms of social value, during the global COVID-19 epidemic in 2020, Li Ke once led BYD to quickly switch to mask production and became the world’s largest mask manufacturer in just 24 days, providing strong support for the global fight against the epidemic. In 2022, she also donated 500,000 BYD shares for blood disease charity projects, ranking 33rd in the “2022 Hurun Charity List” with a donation of 160 million yuan.

Starting from scratch, Li Ke spent nearly thirty years of his career helping BYD conquer half of the overseas market. BYD was able to complete the internationalization path that other companies took ten or even decades in just a few years. She is the most low-key core figure among them, and may also be the most underestimated female helmsman in the history of Chinese companies going global.

Wang Chuanfu created BYD’s technological foundation, and Li Ke extended this foundation to every corner of the world. She is not only the woman behind Wang Chuanfu, but also the Chinese force standing at the center of the world automotive stage.

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