Peng Zhao
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赵鹏
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Peng Zhao, May 2013
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| Born | 1982 or 1983 (age 41–42)[1]
Beijing, China[2]
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| Education | Peking University (BA) University of California, Berkeley (MA, PhD) |
| Occupation | Businessman |
| Years active | 2006-present |
| Employer | Citadel Securities |
| Title | CEO (2017-present) |
| Board member of | The Asian American Foundation[3] National Committee on United States–China Relations |
| Spouse | Cherry Chen |
Peng Zhao (Chinese: 赵鹏; pinyin: Zhào Péng) is a Chinese-American businessman who is the CEO of market making firm Citadel Securities. Peng Zhao was born in Beijing, China.
Zhao was a student of the Talented Children Training Program at Beijing No.8 High School from 1993 to 1997. He earned a bachelor's degree in applied mathematics from Peking University in 2001.[4]and a PhDinstatistics from University of California, Berkeley in 2006.[2]
Peng Zhao was a summer associate at Lehman Brothers and was a quantitative researcher at Evnine & Associates before joining Citadel.[5]
Peng Zhao joined Citadel Securities in 2006 as a quantitative researcher.[6]
In July 2016, Citadel Securities announced that then Microsoft COO, B. Kevin Turner, was joining the firm as CEO.[7] At this time a new role, chief scientist, was created specifically for Peng Zhao who was then the global head of market making.[7]
Five months after joining, Kevin Turner left Citadel Securities, and on January 27, 2017, at age 34, Peng Zhao was promoted to CEO.[1][7]
Zhao is a director of the National Committee on U.S. China Relations.[8] He is a founding board member of the non-profit advocacy and anti-discrimination group The Asian American Foundation (TAAF), established in 2021.[9][10][11]
In 2019, Zhao was named on Fortune's 40 Under 40 list.[2]
Zhao and his wife Cherry Chen organized a one million surgical mask donation to Chicago's first responders during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.[12] The couple also supports Kartemquin Films, a non-profit documentary filmmaking organization, in its efforts to fund filmmakers from the AAPI community through the Peng Zhao and Cherry Chen Fund for AAPI Voices.[13] The couple were co-executive producers of the award-winning documentary Finding Yingying, which was released by Kartemquin Films.[14] Zhao and Chen also fund the Victor Wong Fellowship, a program associated with Chicago's Second City, to train and mentor aspiring comedians from the AAPI community.[15][16] Peng and other founding board members of TAAF committed $125 million to support AAPI organizations and causes at launch. According to The New York Times, it was the single largest philanthropic gift devoted to Asian Americans.[9]
