Chinese-American financier Zhao Peng was perhaps the most important person in the GameStop saga between amateur investors and hedge funds.

The struggling video games retailer’s shares saw a roller coaster ride since last week as Reddit commentators called on the public to hold the stock to fight against hedge funds who were short-selling it.

Zhao, 38, is the chief executive officer of Citadel Securities, which is the major shareholder of Melvin Capital, a top short-seller in the shares of GameStop. Citadel injected US$2 billion into Melvin last week, and is also the biggest funder of the free stockbroking service Robinhood, which has 13 million users.

Around 35% of Robinhood’s income comes from Citadel, and receives its customers’ trade data for the development of a high frequency trading service, according to the Financial Times.

Citadel’s multiple roles made small investors question if Robinhood gave customers data to Citadel and Melvin so that they can make targeted measures. Robinhood had stopped small investors from buying GameStop shares, and from exercising options.

Beijing-born Zhao was named on Fortune’s 40 Under 40 business leader list in 2019. He reportedly entered a class for talented children at the age of 10 where he would finish the higher grades of primary school as well as secondary school within four years. He attended Peking University to study mathematics, and after graduation he gained his doctoral degree at University of California, Berkeley. He won several scholarships and academic awards there, with one of his papers cited more than 1,100 times.

Zhao joined Citadel as a quantitative researcher in 2006 and reportedly developed programs that helped the company make large sums. He was made partner in 2010 and CEO in 2017, replacing former Microsoft COO Kevin Turner, who was just in the seat for seven months.

Zhao, who usually maintains a low profile, organized a donation of a million surgical masks with his wife to Chicago’s first responders in May last year.

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