Shu Fei Zeng, founder and chief executive of KH Marque, has been awarded a 2026 Global Recognition Award for her measurable and consequential role in restructuring Southeast Asia's used cooking oil (UCO) sector into a transparent, commercially scalable, and globally significant supply chain for sustainable aviation fuel feedstock. The award recognizes outstanding achievement across the Revenue Growth, Startup of the Year, Leadership, and Research categories, where her record places her among the most accomplished founders in the sustainable energy sector today. Her recognition reflects the scale of what KH Marque has built since 2021, and the rigor with which it was built.
Zeng brought to KH Marque more than two decades of senior leadership at Vitol and Glencore, two of the world's largest commodity trading firms, giving her a precise understanding of where large-scale supply chains are most exposed to structural failure. Within three years of founding KH Marque, she had positioned the company as Southeast Asia's largest UCO collector, operating across 11 countries and supplying traceable, low-carbon feedstock to global aviation and energy majors. That progression from founding to regional dominance in under four years is the foundation on which this recognition rests.
From Trading Floors to Green Feedstock
When Zeng identified that the renewable aviation fuel (SAF) sector faced its most critical constraint, not in demand but in the integrity and traceability of its feedstock supply, she made a deliberate decision to move from trading commodities to building the infrastructure that would correct it. Her founding of KH Marque was not a departure from her professional expertise but a direct extension of it, channeling two decades of multinational operational experience into a company purpose-built to solve a structural gap that larger incumbents had overlooked. That precision of intent shaped every subsequent decision the company made.
KH Marque built collection networks across Southeast Asia, formalized commercial relationships with thousands of small food businesses, and educated vendors who had previously discarded UCO, unaware of its commercial or environmental value. The S&P Global Energy Awards panel took note, naming Zeng Chief Trailblazer of the Year at its 2025 ceremony and citing her discipline in scaling a sustainability-driven business under complex regulatory conditions across multiple jurisdictions.
"The challenge was never convincing large buyers that traceable feedstock mattered; it was building the ground-level infrastructure that made traceability possible at the volumes they required," Zeng has said of the work. That ground-level infrastructure now functions as one of the most consequential feedstock networks in the SAF supply chain.
Innovation Rooted in Research and Operational Rigor
Zeng's leadership extends beyond supply chain operations into applied research and the development of purpose-built technology. Her team created the UCO Tracker, a proprietary software platform that 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 working toward Net Zero commitments, functioning not as a supplementary product feature but as the operational foundation of KH Marque's competitive position. The TITAN Business Awards recognized this contribution with platinum-level honors, naming Zeng both Innovator of the Year and Sustainability Leader of the Year.
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 across different disciplines. Zeng achieved the highest possible rating of 5 across all evaluated dimensions, including vision and strategy, ethical decision-making, originality of research methodology, international collaboration, and real-world impact, each representing world-class standing. Buyers of KH Marque's UCO achieve greenhouse gas savings of 88-93% compared to fossil-derived alternatives. This figure earned KH Marque a finalist position for SME of the Year at the Reuters Global Sustainability Awards.
Final Words
"Shu Fei Zeng exemplifies 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.
Few founders in the energy sector have achieved revenue growth, structural discipline, and social accountability simultaneously at the scale Zeng has reached across 11 countries in under four years. Her profile has appeared across international platforms, including Business Insider and Yahoo Finance, where her ability to guide teams through consistent expansion while maintaining operational standards has established her as a trusted partner for global energy majors. Her work at KH Marque makes clear that sustainability and commercial scale are not opposing forces but, under the right leadership, mutually reinforcing.
About Global Recognition Awards
The Global Recognition Awards is an international organization that recognizes exceptional companies and individuals who have made significant contributions to their respective industries. For more information, visit globalrecognitionawards.org.
Media Contact
Alex Sterling
alex@globalrecognitionawards.org
