Eric Yuan.

Eric Yuan is the Founder and CEO of Zoom Video Communications, the video conferencing platform that became the essential communication tool during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yuan, born in China, immigrated to the United States in 1997 after being denied a visa eight times. He worked at Cisco WebEx for 14 years before founding Zoom in 2011, believing he could build a better, more reliable video communication platform. Zoom went public in 2019 and its usage exploded during the pandemic, growing from 10 million to 300 million daily meeting participants in months. The word "Zoom" became a verb synonymous with video calling. Yuan was named Time's Businessperson of the Year in 2020. Under his leadership, Zoom has evolved into a comprehensive communication platform including phone, chat, and AI-powered meeting summaries. Yuan's immigrant journey and his creation of one of the most consequential communication tools in modern history exemplify the American entrepreneurial dream.