The involution between car companies starts with personnel.
Just over a month after 2024, the determination of major car companies to turn inward is still very large, and the battle of personnel change is bigger than the other, and there have been news of senior executives taking up new positions or leaving many car companies.
According to incomplete statistics from the Superelectric Laboratory, in January this year alone, more than 20 senior executives in the car circle left their original positions actively or passively, and personnel adjustments are more frequent than those at the beginning of 2023.
In the past year, the entire car circle has been even more turbulent, with high-level personnel changes involving nearly 50 companies and more than 130 senior executives undergoing personnel changes.
Although there are reasons for personnel changes, they also expose everyone's nervousness and urgency, and a consensus is that the new energy vehicle industry has come to the competition point, and 2024 is the year of the decisive battle for the new energy vehicle industry.
The new personnel appointment is the signal of this decisive battle, not only to reduce costs and increase efficiency, but also to improve performance, but also to accelerate transformation and change.
But no one knows how much increment the new leader will bring, better or worse?
01. New forces: marketing + manufacturing is the focus.
Compared with traditional car companies, the flow of personnel of new forces is more frequent, and most of them are concentrated in marketing and production, which is also a problem faced by most new forces.
The first personnel conference at the beginning of 2024 **, from Nezha Automobile, following the sales of Nezha Auto in 2023 suffered a waterloo, CEO Daniel Zhang quickly made a public ** review, saying that the company's "communication is really bad".
With the release of reform measures, I personally grasped marketing, and the previous senior executives in charge of marketing were directly dismissed: Jiang Feng, the former executive vice president of the marketing company, and Li Changhe, the former executive vice president of the marketing company, were dismissed.
In addition, nine appointments were made to the marketing system. It is worth mentioning that Nezha's new appointment is only half a year. Let's make a bold guess that if it doesn't work, it is likely that it will continue to adjust.
In general, Nezha's personnel changes are due to the sluggish sales in 2023, so the management of the marketing company has undergone a major change. It is reported that Nezha Automobile delivered a total of 12 throughout the year70,000 units, down 20% year-on-year, and it is also one of the few car companies among several new forces that has declined year-on-year.
Among the new forces, the biggest personnel change is still Xiaopeng, since Wang Fengying joined Xiaopeng, Xiaopeng's internal organizational structure has been constantly adjusted.
On January 22, it was said that Wang Fengying led the promotion of a new round of organizational restructuring of Xiaopeng Motors, involving multiple departments such as marketing, human resources, intelligent data, manufacturing and product planning.
Specifically, Huang Ronghai, the former head of Xiaopeng's Data Intelligence Center (DIC), and Chen Dan, the head of the new human resources department, resigned.
Jiang Ping, the former vice president of manufacturing at Xpeng, has retired and been taken over by Zhang Li, the former general manager of Great Wall Motors, and it is worth mentioning that Zhang Li's other identity is Wang Fengying's spouse, and the two have worked together for 30 years.
Zhang Li is mainly responsible for production and manufacturing in the Great Wall, public information shows that Zhang Li has served as the general manager of the Great Wall Xushui Company for a long time, and the annual production capacity of the Great Wall in the Xushui production base is as high as 1 million units, and the Haval H6 is produced here.
Later, the tank series launched by the Great Wall was also produced and manufactured by Zhang Li, and it can be said that Zhang Li is a good hand in this regard.
In 2024, Xpeng has set a sales target of 280,000 yuan per year, which not only means that sales will face challenges, but also there will be pressure on manufacturing and delivery.
Yi Han, the former executive of Geely, served as vice president of Xiaopeng during the 2023 Spring Festival, fully responsible for marketing and public relations, and left before the Spring Festival this year to return to Geely. Last month, smart announced the appointment of Yi Han as Deputy CMO of the brand's global company and CEO of the brand's China marketing company.
On January 24, Leapmotor issued a statement saying that the labor contract of Wu Baojun, the former co-founder and president of Leapmotor, had expired and terminated on January 8, and the company would not renew its employment by resolution of the board of directors.
Just recently, there was a ** report that Zeng Lintang, assistant to the chairman of Leapmotor, also left the company in December last year, and the response given by Leapmotor was, "Zeng Lintang left Leapmotor last year due to personal reasons." ”
In addition, NIO is also speeding up system adjustment. On January 6, Bai Jian, vice president of Weilai Hardware, posted on Weibo that he would take over Weilai's mobile phone business, and the former head Yin Shuijun would resign.
It is reported that Yin Shuijun used to be the president of Meitu Mobile, and officially joined NIO in 2022, responsible for leading the construction of NIO's mobile phone business team, mainly responsible for the implementation of the mobile phone business. In September last year, NIO mobile phones were officially launched.
Although both sides expressed politely on social platforms, the outside world is still full of speculation about Yin Shuijun's resignation, thinking that it may be because NIO's mobile phone business does not meet expectations and the future is unclear, so he resigned.
NIO is one of the few car companies in the new forces to develop a side business, and Yin Shuijun's resignation means, to a certain extent, that NIO has begun to re-evaluate its mobile phone business.
02. Traditional car companies: all for sales.
Compared with the new forces, one of the major features of the personnel adjustment of traditional car companies is that the top leaders of car companies directly participate in specific business management, or take temporary positions in sub-brands, and promote more younger executives.
In December last year, AVATR Technology issued a statement that Tan Benhong would no longer serve as the chairman and CEO of AVATR Technology, but would serve as the deputy secretary of the Party Committee of Changan Automobile, and the new chairman of AVATR Technology would take over Zhu Huarong, the current leader of Changan Automobile.
In addition, Chen Zhuo, vice president of AVATAR, was promoted to president of AVATAR; Wang Jun, President of Changan Automobile, became the chairman of Shenlan Automobile, and the CEO of Shenlan Automobile was still Deng Chenghao, and Deng Chenghao was promoted to vice president of Changan Automobile.
As a sub-brand incubated by traditional car companies, AVATR has been pinned on high hopes since its birth, and Zhu Huarong has also said that AVATR carries the mission of Changan Automobile's brand, and its development is the top priority of Changan Automobile.
Previously, when Tan Benhong was in office, he put forward the goal of "AVATR Technology will challenge the order of 100,000 units in 2023", but the final annual delivery volume was less than 30,000 units.
Now that Zhu Huarong, the leader of the group, is personally in charge, the development of AVATR is bound to receive more resources and support.
If Chang'an is the big man himself, then SAIC's management team is constantly injecting young fresh blood to further accelerate innovation and transformation.
On January 11, SAIC Motor announced that Vice President Wu Bing will no longer concurrently serve as the general manager of SAIC Passenger Vehicle Branch and CEO of Feifan Automobile, and Wang Jun, the former general manager of Huayu Automobile, will take over as the general manager of SAIC Passenger Vehicle Branch and CEO of Feifan Automobile.
A month before this appointment, SAIC Motor had already issued a personnel adjustment announcement: Jia Jianxu, general manager of SAIC Volkswagen, Jiang Jun, CEO of Zhiji Automobile, and Wu Bing, general manager of SAIC Passenger Vehicle Branch and CEO of Feifan Automobile, were appointed as vice presidents of SAIC Group.
Among them, Jiang Jun is a post-70s generation, and Jia Jianxu and Wu Bing are post-75s. It is reported that at present, SAIC has a total of 8 vice presidents, and 6 of them are post-70s.
Compared with the promotion of many young Zhuang backbones of SAIC, the Great Wall Motors next door has a lot of talent loss.
In addition to the above-mentioned Zhang Li's transfer to Xiaopeng, the executives of many brands under the Great Wall have changed frequently, especially Weipai, as the backbone of the CEO, has changed 6 in 7 years.
At present, the work of the Wei brand is concurrently held by Liu Yanzhao, general manager of the tank brand, and the former CEO Chen Siying announced his resignation in October last year. In early January, Chen Siying was revealed to have joined Polestar as the chief operating officer (COO), taking full responsibility for the marketing business.
After Chen Siying's resignation, Great Wall Motors announced new personnel appointments, Zhao Yongpo will be the general manager of the Haval brand, and Gu Yukun, the former commodity director of the Tank 500, will be the executive deputy general manager of the Tank brand.
As the main force of the Great Wall, the development of WEY brand in recent years has not been satisfactory, and a total of 4160,000 new cars, far less than two-thirds of the peak.
Wei brand personnel adjustment turmoil, the Great Wall's leading brand Haval has not been spared, previously reported that the former Haval general manager Li Xiaorui was revealed to have joined Xiaomi Auto, but Xiaomi Auto did not confirm the news.
At the end of January, it was reported that Qiao Xinyu, executive vice president of brand marketing at Haval, had left the company, and his whereabouts were unknown. People close to Haval said that Qiao Xinyu's departure was related to the adjustment of Haval's organizational structure. For a time, the news of the departure of Great Wall executives rushed to the hot search.
03. Joint venture luxury brand: increase the Chinese market.
In China's increasingly competitive auto market, new forces are catching up, domestic brands are catching up, and joint ventures and luxury brands have to respond to market challenges through internal adjustment and optimization.
On October 18, 2023, BMW Group announced that Sean Green, former Senior Vice President of Marketing at BMW Brilliance Automotive, will become President and CEO of BMW Group Greater China. Jochen Goller, former President and CEO of Greater China, will return to Germany and become a member of the Board of Directors of the BMW Group.
Although the two "high SIRs" are both foreign executives, it is reported that they have worked in China for nearly 10 years, and they can be said to be real "China experts".
Shao Bin, President of BMW (China) Automotive***, will succeed Gao Xiang as Senior Vice President of Marketing at BMW Brilliance.
In 2023, BMW will start with 82The sales volume of 50,000 units once again surpassed Mercedes-Benz and Audi to win the championship of BBA's sales in China, but its pure electric sales accounted for only 12%.
Audi also announced last month that Johannes Roscheck will become President of Audi China as President of Audi China as of April 1, 2024, succeeding Wen Zeyue, President of Audi China, and overseeing Audi's business in China.
Jürgen Unser, former president of Audi China, will return to Germany after two years in Beijing to start a new job at the Volkswagen Group.
In addition, Volkswagen China also said that from April 1, 2024, Wu Borui, a member of the management board of the Volkswagen brand responsible for the "new mobility" business, will take over from Han Hongming to be responsible for the group's research and development in China, promote the localization of the group's product portfolio in China, and serve as the CEO of Volkswagen Group (China) Technology ***VCTC).
Another luxury brand, Jaguar Land Rover, officially announced that from January 2, Wang Fang, who served as the president of Aston Martin China and the vice president of national sales of Mercedes-Benz Canada, will serve as the executive vice president of the marketing department of Jaguar Land Rover China and Chery Jaguar Land Rover Joint Marketing Sales and Service Organization (IMSS), reporting to Wu Chen, president of IMSS.
In addition, Dongfeng Honda, Dongfeng Nissan, Volvo, Lynk & Co and other new and old joint venture car companies have announced personnel changes.
Behind the turnover of personnel is the desire of car companies for sales and share.
Joint venture brands have long been unable to lie down to make money, and the new energy vehicle industry has begun to heat up, in fact, in the final analysis, the biggest factor in competition still depends on people.
Let's see who has the last laugh.