X Financial announces appointment of new President, Kan (Kent) Li

By Leandra Monteiro

China-based X Financial, a technology-driven personal finance company, today announced that Mr. Shaoyong (Simon) Cheng has been appointed as the Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors and has resigned as President of the Company with effect from May 24, 2021. Further to that announcement the company also disclosed that Mr. Kan (Kent) Li has been appointed as President of the Company with effect from May 24, 2021.

Mr. Shaoyong (Simon) Cheng joined X Financial in 2015 and has served as the Director since December 2017. Cheng served as the President starting from October 2017. Prior to serving as the President, Cheng served as the company’s Chief Risk Officer from 2015 to 2017. Prior to that, Cheng served as deputy General Manager in charge of retail lending management at Bank of Communications, senior credit risk manager at HSBC North America and HSBC Asia Pacific.

Cheng also served as head of CEO office and head of business banking at Hang Seng Bank China Limited, and manager at Capital One. Cheng has a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in engineering as well as a bachelor’s degree in economics from Tsinghua University, a master’s degree in industrial engineering and an MBA degree from University of Southern California.

Mr. Kan (Kent) Li joined the company in 2015 and served as its Chief Risk Officer starting from November 2017. Prior to serving as the Chief Risk Officer, Li served as a division director in charge of unsecured loan risk from 2015 to 2017. Prior to that, he served as a Sr. manager at Capital One Financial from September 2008 to November 2015, and had served many capacities in various position, including customer acquisition, customer management, as well as collections and recoveries.

Before that, Li worked as a Sr. Strategy Analyst for ATB Financial, a regional bank in Canada, from May 2005 to August 2008. Li has a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in economics from Southwestern University of Economics and Finance. He has published several academic papers, including a research paper in Review of Economics and Statistics (edited by Harvard University).