| Forrest Li Xiaodong | |
| Native Name: | 李小冬 |
| Birth Place: | Tianjin, China[1] |
| Citizenship: | Singaporean |
| Education: | Shanghai Jiaotong University (BA) Stanford University (MBA) |
| Known For: | Founder of Sea Limited Chairman of Lion City Sailors FC |
Forrest Li Xiaodong (born 1977 or 1978) is a Singaporean billionaire businessman. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Sea Limited, a company with subsidiaries including Garena, Shopee, and SeaMoney.[2] He is also the chairman of Lion City Sailors FC, which is owned by Sea.
Forrest Li Xiaodong was born in Tianjin, China. He earned a bachelor's degree in engineering from Shanghai Jiaotong University, and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.[3]
Li moved to Singapore with limited financial resources and substantial student loan debt amounting to $100,000. Upon his arrival, he and his wife rented a single bedroom in a three-room HDB flat in Braddell. He later became a permanent resident of Singapore and took up citizenship.[4]
Li founded Sea in 2009, initially as a digital entertainment company under the name Garena.[5] At the time, the company had only operated out of a single shophouse off Maxwell Road at Tanjong Pagar.[6] The company first focused on game publishing.[7] Over the years, Li's company diversified its business to include e-commerce and digital financial services.[8] In 2015, Garena launched Shopee, an e-commerce platform that grew to become one of the leading online shopping service providers in Southeast Asia.[9] Later, the company introduced SeaMoney, which offers digital financial services including payments and lending.
In May 2017, after raising US$550 million in a funding round, Garena underwent a corporate rebranding and adopted the name Sea Ltd, while retaining use of the name Garena for Sea's digital entertainment segment.
In March 2019, after the share price of his consumer internet company Sea Ltd increased by 45%, Li's net worth increased to more than $1 billion.[10]
Li is a football enthusiast and serves as the chairman of the Lion City Sailors, a Singapore Premier League football club acquired by Sea in 2020.[11] [12]
Li is married and lives in Singapore. He appeared on the August 2020 cover of Forbes Asia, the Asia edition of Forbes magazine.[13] As of April 5, 2024, his net worth was estimated at US$3.6 billion according to the Forbes World’s Billionaires List, ranking him as the ninth richest person in Singapore.[14] [15]