(CFP)

Ren Zhengfei, President of Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., ranks first on the latest list of China's Most Influential Business Leaders released by the Chinese version of Fortune magazine, replacing last year's champion Liu Chuanzhi, Chairman of Lenovo Group Ltd.

Ren rose from last year's fourth place to this year's No 1. The number of influential business leaders on the list increased from 25 to 50 this year.

Ren, 67, was born in Guizhou Province. In 1988, he founded Huawei with 20,000 yuan ($3,030) in registered capital and turned it from a small company into one of today's Fortune's top 500 global companies in 2010 with total sales revenues of $28 billion. With total assets of $1.1 billion, Ren ranks 92nd on the 2011 Forbes China Rich List.