1982 graduated from Chinese Department of Sun Yat-sen University with a bachelor's degree. He also studied advanced management at Harvard Business School. Fang established Hopu Fund, a private equity fund, at the end of 2007, with an initial scale of about $2.5 billion. As a limited partner, Goldman Sachs Group invested about $300 million. Fang's father was a farmer, and later he held a senior administrative position in the China People's Liberation Army. During the Cultural Revolution in China, Fang, 16 years old, was sent to the hard rural areas in Inner Mongolia. Three years later, he joined the army and was admitted to Zhongshan University in Guangdong in the late 1970s. After graduation, he was assigned to the Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Department of Henan Province as a civil servant. At that time, Henan was a poor province in the Central Plains. It was there that Fang met and was sent by him to study the American financial system.

After briefly taking charge of China Bank (4.67, -0.05,-1.06%)(BoC) and China Industrial and Commercial Bank (5.49, -0.06,-1.08%)(ICBC), Fang once again reached the top of China's financial innovation. He brokered a breakthrough deal and opened the door for Goldman Sachs to enter China.