(Yicai Global) Aug. 4 -- Cheng Wu, who became the chief executive of China Literature in April, is passionate about turning the intellectual property of books into TV series, movies, and games to create new creative works.

Cheng, a Beijing native, was admitted to the renown Tsinghua University in 1992 to study theoretical physics. After graduation, he worked for big international companies such as Procter & Gamble, Pepsi, and Google.

But domestic firms were widening their clouts rapidly. After serving foreign companies as a manager for more than 10 years, Cheng joined Tencent Holdings in 2009, which gave him room to develop his ideas of business strategy. In the next few years, he was influential in creating Tencent Comics, Tencent Pictures and Tencent Esports, expanding the tech giant's business scope.

Tencent bought Shanda Literature and merged it with China Literature in 2015. Cheng was a key player in the deal and served as a director after the transaction. He replaced Shanda Literature founder Wu Wenhui as the company's CEO in April 2020.

Cheng is looking to widen the platform's horizons. China Literature can grow only through forming a cultural ecosystem, he said. The domestic market for e-books is only worth tens of billions of yuan, while that of movies is CNY60 billion (USD8.6 billion), according to the CEO. Meanwhile, TV dramas have a scale between CNY150 billion and CNY200 billion, and games tally CNY400 billion.

But Cheng has time. His career at China Literature "will not be very short" as he said that he was planning on staying onboard till retirement. But the cycle of the industry is also slow. It takes at least three years to finish a high-quality film or TV production, Cheng said. A good Hollywood blockbuster can even take five years, he added.

China Literature is in a period of transition and could use such a dedicated leader in the long-term, the report added.

Editor: Emmi Laine

This story was reproduced from the Moduxiaoshaobing WeChat account with permission.