Sohn Hong Kong is coming up on May 20, 2026 at the Asia Society Hong Kong Center. Leading up to the big day, we caught up with Kenny Zhang of Valliance Asset Management in Hong Kong. He is the chief investment officer of Valliance’s Long Short Fund, launched in July 2023. Describing AI agents as “digital people,” Zhang said they are the fastest-growing population group on earth.
Background on Kenny Zhang
Born in China, Zhang’s family moved to the U.S. when he was a teenager. He spent his early years in Shenyang in the northeastern part of China, a place that was once the country’s industrial backbone. However, the Shenyang region experienced a prolonged decline starting in the 1990s, when the supply chain shifted away from there.
“As a kid I watched families around me go through layoffs and constant changing of jobs just to stay afloat,” Zhang recalled. “That left a deep impression on me. It taught me early that nothing is static. Industries, companies and people all go through cycles, and survival often depends on the ability to adapt and reinvent yourself. That idea has shaped both my career and my investing philosophy.”
Early career
Zhang attended Carnegie Mellon University, where he studied information systems. He moved to New York City after college and spent a decade there working in investment banking, private equity and hedge fund firms. Starting his career at a middle-market investment bank covering non-bank financials, he then moved into real estate private equity at Brookfield. Next, he went to Moore Capital, where he was a research analyst for the long/ short equity team.
“Brookfield taught me how physical infrastructure can create tremendous value, and Moore taught me in a public market how fast capital can reprice when the thesis changes,” Zhang said. “After Moore, I joined GDS Holdings, the leading listed Chinese data center company, where I built and led the largest data center M&A team in Asia during the most explosive build-out in data center history.”
That was between 2019 and 2022.
“That’s where I realized the people financing these assets and the people building them were living in completely different realities,” Zhang added. “The builders understood what the digital economy would demand. The capital markets were still modeling linear cloud and AI growth. That gap is why I started the Valliance Long Short Fund, to sit at the intersection of physical infrastructure knowledge and public market investing. I’ve spent half my life in Asia and half in the U.S., so i don’t see two separate markets. I see one supply chain.”
Continual learning
Because of what he experienced in China during his early years, Zhang has felt the need to keep learning, evolving and repositioning himself as the world has changed. As a result, he’s always been drawn to places and systems in transition, especially those experiencing a long-cycle transformation. Places going through these types of situations resonate with Zhang, not just at a macro level but also in how he thinks about companies and industries as an investor.
“I naturally gravitate towards businesses going through cyclical hardships,” Zhang said. “I have real empathy for those situations, but I’m especially drawn to companies that have the resilience to endure, adapt and emerge stronger on the other side. And we love to invest heavily in those types of companies.”
Zhang’s first stock… still a current holding
In fact, the first stock Zhang bought echoes this mindset. He picked up shares of T-Mobile after its initial public offering in 2013, and he still owns it today. At the time he bought the stock, the company was an underdog — a struggling U.S. mobile carrier.
“I expected mobile bandwidth consumption to grow rapidly as more and more apps became available on our smartphones,” Zhang recalled. “AT&T’s exclusivity with Apple ended, and T-Mobile started selling iPhones for the first time in 2013… And so I made an investment based on the fact that with the playing field now more even, T-Mobile could take subscribers from Verizon and AT&T by offering discounted unlimited plans and better service. I’ve been a T-Mobile user ever since.”
He noted that T-Mobile’s coverage was “quite bad” in those early days. However, management invested the $3 billion breakup fee in spectrum and telecom tower infrastructure after the failed takeover by AT&T.
“I personally felt the coverage was improving, which reinforced my belief that physical infrastructure is the backbone of the digital economy,” Zhang added. “It was the first stock I bought in my IRA account, and I still own it today as a memento of one of the most incredible turnaround stories in telecom. The investment has appreciated over 500%.”
Pursuing asset management
When it came to becoming an asset manager, Zhang said he appreciated the opportunity Moore Capital gave him early in his career, having learned a lot there. After spending four years at GDS, he wanted to run his own hedge fund.
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