Fortune Most Powerful Women Ranking

Binance co-CEO and co-founder Yi He has been included in the annual Fortune Most Powerful Women 2026 ranking, marking a significant milestone not only for the company itself but also for the entire crypto industry. Binance emphasized that she is the first-ever representative of digital assets to be featured in this prestigious list throughout its history. The Fortune Most Powerful Women ranking has been published since 1998 and traditionally brings together the 100 most influential women in global business, politics, and finance.

Yi He described her inclusion in the list as recognition not only of her personal role but also of a broader shift in the global financial system. She noted that the achievement reflects the trust of hundreds of millions of users worldwide in new financial technologies. In her statement, she highlighted real Binance users — from a son in Nairobi sending his earnings to his mother, to a woman in a small Indian city opening her first crypto account at the age of 50. According to her, access to finance has never been evenly distributed, and digital platforms are now beginning to change that reality.

Yi He’s story is often seen as one of the most striking examples of rapid influence growth in the crypto industry. She was born in 1986 in Yibin, Sichuan Province, China, in a family of teachers. Her career began long before Binance and included early involvement in China’s emerging crypto market.

In 2014, Yi He co-founded the crypto exchange OKCoin (now OKX) with Star Xu, becoming one of the first major trading platforms in the region. That same year, she met Changpeng Zhao (CZ) at a local conference and invited him to join OKCoin as Chief Technology Officer. This moment later became one of the key intersections in early crypto history.

However, by 2015 both CZ and Yi He left OKCoin, temporarily going their separate ways. The turning point came in 2017 when Zhao invited her to join a new project — Binance. At the time, Yi He was working at the video platform Yizhibo, but she quickly became involved in the startup’s development.

She played a key role in Binance’s early stage, including contributing to the preparation of the project’s ICO white paper, through which the company raised around $15 million. On August 8, 2017, she officially joined Binance, becoming one of the key figures in shaping the exchange’s growth strategy.

Over the following years, her influence within the company steadily increased. In 2023, Bloomberg named Yi He the most influential woman in crypto, recognizing her role in product strategy, marketing, and global brand development. In December 2025, she was appointed co-CEO of Binance alongside Richard Teng. This dual leadership model reflects Binance’s strategic balance: on one side product, growth, and user ecosystem; on the other regulatory compliance and institutional development. Yi He oversees product and marketing strategy, while Teng focuses on compliance and institutional expansion.

Her inclusion in the Fortune Most Powerful Women 2026 list effectively cements the crypto industry’s position within traditional global business. While digital asset leaders were previously largely absent from such rankings, their influence is now recognized alongside top executives from major banks, technology corporations, and investment funds.

For Binance itself, this is also a symbolic moment. The company, which started as a crypto startup in 2017, is now building a governance model comparable in complexity to multinational financial institutions. The presence of its co-CEO in a global influence ranking demonstrates how deeply the crypto industry has integrated into the global economic system.

Ultimately, Yi He’s story reflects a broader transformation: the shift of crypto from a peripheral technological experiment into a full-fledged participant in global financial governance.