According to incomplete statistics from "Automotive Industry Concern", more than 20 car companies have announced personnel changes in the first half of 2024, with a total of more than 100 positions adjusted. Under the impact of the price war, most car companies are caught in the dilemma of sluggish sales, and many car companies have carried out internal reform and organizational optimization, striving to achieve a comprehensive breakthrough at this stage, in order to cope with the more volatile car market in the second half of the year.
In the first half of this year, nearly half of the personnel changes occurred in traditional car companies and joint venture car companies, and they are all among the top domestic automobile groups.
Among traditional car companies, Dongfeng Motor Group's actions are particularly frequent. On June 11, the official website of Dongfeng Motor Group Co., Ltd. showed that Dongfeng had a change in its leadership team. Among them, Liu Yanhong is the director and deputy secretary of the Party Committee of Dongfeng Motor Group Co., Ltd., and Peng Yuanpu is the deputy general manager and member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee of Dongfeng Motor Group Co., Ltd.
It should be noted that this is the fourth round of high-level personnel changes in Dongfeng this year.
On March 27, Zhou Zhiping, former member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee and deputy general manager of FAW, was promoted to director, general manager and deputy secretary of the Party Committee of Dongfeng Company;
On April 30, Huang Yong, the former Secretary of the Party Committee and Executive Deputy General Manager of FAW Toyota, was just transferred to the Standing Committee of the Party Committee and Deputy General Manager of Dongfeng Company; Earlier, Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd., as a subsidiary, underwent industrial and commercial changes on January 3, Guo Tao stepped down as the legal representative and chairman, and was replaced by Zhou Xianpeng, and a number of directors and supervisors were changed.
In addition to Dongfeng, large automobile groups such as FAW Group, SAIC Group, BAIC Group, and Brilliance Group have also undergone large-scale personnel adjustments.
On July 11, China FAW officially announced that Chen Bin was appointed as a member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee and deputy general manager of China FAW Group Co., Ltd. Earlier, on June 13, the official website of China FAW issued a decision on the appointment of members of the leadership team, Comrade Wu Bilei was appointed as a member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee and deputy general manager of China FAW Group Co., Ltd.; On March 15, Liu Yigong was appointed as director, general manager and deputy secretary of the Party Committee of China FAW Group Co., Ltd.;
On July 10, SAIC officially announced the decision to adjust the main leadership: Mr. Chen Hong, the former chairman, resigned as chairman and other positions due to his retirement. Wang Xiaoqiu is the chairman of SAIC, and Mr. Jia Jianxu is the president of SAIC. It is understood that Chen Hong has served in SAIC for 40 years, and has served as Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of SAIC since 2014, which is 10 years.
In terms of BAIC Group, it was officially announced on March 27 that Zhang Jianyong was appointed Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of Beijing Automotive Group Co., Ltd., and Jiang Deyi no longer served as Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of Beijing Automotive Group Co., Ltd. It is understood that Jiang Deyi replaced Xu Heyi as Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of Beijing Automotive Group Co., Ltd. in July 2020, and it was only three years when he stepped down, while his replacement Zhang Jianyong is a veteran of the automotive industry, and he has spent nearly 20 years in BAIC Group. In addition, as a holding subsidiary of BAIC Group, BAIC New Energy has also undergone personnel changes recently, and Liu Yu, former deputy general manager of BAIC Group and chairman of BAIC New Energy, no longer serves as the chairman of BAIC New Energy; Dai Kangwei, former Secretary of the Party Committee and General Manager of BAIC New Energy, was promoted to Deputy Engineer of Beijing Group and Chairman of BAIC New Energy; Zhang Guofu, former deputy secretary of the Party Committee and executive deputy general manager of BAIC New Energy, was promoted to secretary of the Party Committee and general manager of BAIC New Energy; Liu Guanqiao, former director of operation and management of BAIC Group, was transferred to the executive deputy general manager of BAIC New Energy;
As a large-scale vehicle manufacturing enterprise controlled by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Liaoning Province, Brilliance Group underwent personnel changes on March 26, Shen Tiedong no longer served as the secretary of the Party committee, chairman and legal representative of Brilliance Group, and Liu Yanhui served as the executive director and legal representative of Brilliance Group. It is understood that after the decision of the shareholders, Brilliance Group will not have a board of directors, executive directors, a board of supervisors, and supervisors.
It can be seen that the above-mentioned personnel changes basically involve the first and second leaders, and the scale is not small.
In terms of joint ventures, FAW-Volkswagen, Changan Ford, Changan Mazda and Zhengzhou Nissan all made personnel adjustments in the first half of the year.
Among them, the car companies with the highest level of personnel adjustment are Changan Mazda and Changan Ford. On April 30, Changan Mazda announced that Kei Sumioka will officially step down as president of Changan Mazda Automobile Co., Ltd., and Hidehisa Matsuda will succeed Kei Sumioka as president of Changan Mazda Automobile Co., Ltd. It is understood that Kei Sumioka joined Mazda Motor Co., Ltd. in 1992, and has been responsible for Mazda's business in the Chinese market since 20214, and took over as president of Changan Mazda in March 2022.
Changan Ford officially announced on May 6 that Ai Xiaoming was officially appointed president of Changan Ford Automobile Co., Ltd., reporting to the board of directors of Changan Ford, and former Changan Ford President He Xiaoqing has retired.
Among the new power car companies, more than five car companies experienced a personnel reshuffle in the first half of the year, involving brands such as Nezha, Xiaopeng, Leap and Jiyue, among which Xiaopeng Motors' personnel changes are particularly frequent, since the beginning of 2023, the "Iron Lady" Wang Fengying joined Xiaopeng Motors as president, she has carried out a series of measures to deepen reforms, which has also triggered a series of personnel changes.
On January 22, it was reported that Wang Fengying, president of Xpeng Motors, led a new round of organizational restructuring involving a number of key departments such as marketing, human resources, intelligent data, manufacturing and product planning. Specifically, Huang Ronghai, the former head of the Data Intelligence Center (DIC), is now in charge of the human resources department, while Chen Dan, the former head of the human resources department, has left Xpeng Motors; Zhang Li, the former general manager of Great Wall Motors, joined Xpeng Motors a few months ago, replacing the retired Jiang Ping in charge of manufacturing. Jiang Ziyang, who previously worked as a senior consultant for positioning consulting at Reece Strategy, joined Xpeng Motors to be responsible for product planning, which was previously led by Wu Meng.
On March 13, the official website of Xiaopeng Motors carried out the core management team, and the company's co-founders Xia Heng and He Tao were changed from members of the "core management team" to "lifelong honor", and the previous core team was only left Chairman / CEO He Xiaopeng alone, and President Wang Fengying and Vice Chairman / Co-President Gu Hongdi formed the latest core team.
In mid-June, He Xiaopeng welcomed new member Candice (Yuan Tingting) to join Xiaopeng on Weibo, saying that this accelerated the global promotion of intelligent driving technology. According to the data, Yuan Tingting graduated from Zhejiang University, has been in charge of product management and commercial operation in Alibaba Damo Academy, Cainiao Network and other companies, with rich industry experience, joining Xiaopeng Motors will replace Liu Yilin as the senior director of Xiaopeng Motors' autonomous driving products.
In addition to Xpeng Motors, Leapmotor issued a statement on January 24 saying that Wu Baojun's labor contract had expired and terminated on January 8, 2024, and the board of directors resolved to renew his employment.
In terms of domestic brands, including Great Wall Motor, Geely Automobile, and Chery Automobile, they have also adjusted. On June 6, Qin Peiji, deputy general manager of Geely Automobile Group Sales Company, has been officially transferred to Polestar Technology as chief operating officer, responsible for the company's sales, channel development and marketing business segments. Effective immediately, Chen Siying will no longer serve as chief operating officer and will be reassigned to senior vice president of product planning.
Personnel changes may bring a certain vitality to the enterprise. After entering 2024, in the context of the rapid development of the new energy vehicle market and the continuous escalation of the price war, replacing the first and second leaders has become one of the strategic choices for traditional/joint venture car companies to cope with market changes and accelerate the transformation of new energy. Fundamentally speaking, the transformation of traditional car companies requires new leaders to change the relatively outdated internal organizational structure and management system in the past, and build a new team to lead the company to go better. Industry insiders said that start-ups are willing to learn from the experience of some mature companies, and likewise mature companies will also introduce the ideas of start-up car companies to understand each other's different perspectives and improve their respective horizons.