-- Shu Fei Zeng, founder and chief executive of KH Marque, has been named a recipient of a 2026 Global Recognition Award, an international distinction presented to leaders who have delivered measurable impact within their industries. The award recognizes her work in converting Southeast Asia's fragmented used cooking oil sector into a transparent, commercially scalable supply chain that now serves as a credible standard for sustainable biofuel sourcing worldwide. Her selection reflects a record of achievement that covers revenue growth, startup leadership, applied research, and organizational discipline across 11 countries.
Photo Courtesy of Shu Fei Zeng
Zeng founded KH Marque in 2021, drawing on more than two decades of senior leadership at global commodity trading firms Vitol and Glencore, and within three years built the company into Southeast Asia's largest used cooking oil collector. She has since expanded the company's operations to supply traceable, low-carbon feedstock to the world's largest aviation and energy companies, positioning KH Marque as a credible and commercially significant participant in the global biofuel supply chain. Her selection for this award honors outstanding achievement across four categories: Revenue Growth, Startup of the Year, Leadership, and Research.
From Trading Floors to Green Feedstock
Zeng's career began in global energy commodity trading, where her years at Vitol and Glencore gave her a precise understanding of how large-scale supply chains function and where they are most vulnerable to failure. She identified that the renewable aviation fuel sector faced a critical bottleneck, not in demand, but in the integrity and traceability of its feedstock supply. She decided to move from trading commodities to building the infrastructure to resolve it. Her founding of KH Marque was a direct application of two decades of multinational expertise, designed to close a structural gap that larger incumbents had overlooked.
KH Marque's founding premise was deliberate: collect used cooking oil at the grassroots level, certify it with full traceability, and deliver it to global buyers who cannot afford the reputational and regulatory risk of supply chain fraud. Zeng built collection networks across Southeast Asia, formalized relationships with thousands of small food businesses, and educated vendors who had previously discarded used cooking oil, unaware of its commercial and environmental value. That work earned her the title of Chief Trailblazer of the Year at the 2025 S&P Global Energy Awards, where judges cited her discipline in scaling a sustainability-driven business model under complex regulatory conditions across multiple jurisdictions.
Innovation Rooted in Research and Operational Rigor
Zeng's leadership extends to applied research and purpose-built technological development, areas where her team developed the UCO Tracker. This proprietary software platform provides real-time traceability and carbon-intensity reporting for every batch of feedstock moving through KH Marque's network. The platform was built in direct response to the regulatory demands of the European SAF mandate and the requirements of global aviation buyers seeking to meet their Net Zero commitments, making it an operational foundation rather than a supplementary feature. The TITAN Business Awards recognized this contribution with platinum-level honors, naming Zeng as Innovator of the Year and Sustainability Leader of the Year, a dual recognition that reflects the close relationship between her technical contributions and her commercial leadership.
Global Recognition Awards evaluates nominees through a rigorous process in which a panel of independent industry experts screens all applications against criteria including innovation, leadership, service, and social responsibility. Shortlisted candidates are then assessed using the Rasch model. This psychometric measurement framework converts evaluator scores into a linear scale, enabling precise and fair comparison between candidates who excel across different disciplines. Zeng scored at the highest tier across every dimension assessed, including vision and strategy implementation, ethical decision-making, originality of research methodology, international collaboration, and real-world impact, each rated at the maximum level of five, which signifies world-class standing. Buyers of KH Marque's used cooking oil achieve greenhouse gas savings of 88-93% compared to fossil-derived alternatives. This figure earned the company a finalist position for SME of the Year at the Reuters Global Sustainability Awards.
Final Words
"Shu Fei Zeng represents exactly what this award stands for, a leader who identified a systemic gap, built a world-class solution, and delivered measurable impact at a global scale, making her an unambiguous choice for this recognition," said Alex Sterling, spokesperson for Global Recognition Awards. Zeng entered an industry defined by opacity and informal practice, and built a company that now holds a credible traceability standard for global biofuel supply chains, proving that rigorous operational discipline and commercial ambition can coexist at scale. Her record combines the growth of a high-performance startup, the structural discipline of an established enterprise, and the social accountability of an organization that has formalized livelihoods for thousands of small collectors across Southeast Asia.
Her profile has been featured across international platforms, including Business Insider and Yahoo Finance, where her ability to guide teams through consistent growth has made her a trusted partner for global energy majors and a credible voice on the future of feedstock supply chains. Few founders in the energy sector have managed commercial scale, supply chain integrity, and documented environmental impact simultaneously across 11 countries in under 4 years, a feat that places her work in a category that warrants serious attention from the broader industry. Shu Fei Zeng's 2026 Global Recognition Award recognizes what becomes possible when deep industry expertise, technological development, and ethical leadership work together without compromise.
About Global Recognition Awards
Global Recognition Awards is an international organization that recognizes exceptional companies and individuals who have made significant contributions to their industries.
Contact Info:
Name: Alexander Sterling
Email: Send Email
Organization: Global Recognition Awards
Website: https://globalrecognitionawards.org
Release ID: 89187867
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