What kind of Huawei will Meng Wanzhou take over after today?

This afternoon , Huawei held a press conference for its 2022 annual report.

Source: Huawei official website

Today, we try to witness her growth trajectory and experiences through her three life experiences.

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Before the "Meng Wanzhou Case", a Sino-US game incident that can be recorded in history, compared with those Huawei generals with outstanding achievements, Meng Wanzhou did not participate in too many external battles that "attacked cities and captured territory, and used weapons everywhere". He has always kept a very low profile and rarely appears in public.

As the daughter of Ren Zhengfei and his first wife, Meng Wanzhou was born in 1972. Because her father was an infrastructure engineer, Meng Wanzhou spent her childhood in many places, from Chengdu, Sichuan, to Duyun, Guizhou, and to Jinan, Shandong.

Meng Wanzhou and her father Ren Zhengfei

In 1984, Ren Zhengfei changed his job and went to work in Shenzhen, and Meng Wanzhou was taken to live in Shenzhen for a period of time, and thus witnessed the most difficult period of his father's life. She recalled in an article titled "Kite" that the family lived in a leaky house at that time. "It's raining heavily outside and light raining inside. In a house with ventilation on all sides, the neighbors next door can hear what they say."

Later, Meng Wanzhou was sent to study at the home of her grandparents in Guizhou and grew up. At the age of 16, she took her mother's surname.

Huawei was founded by Ren Zhengfei in 1987. When her father started his business, Meng Wanzhou was in high school in Shenzhen. In 1993, one year after graduating from university, Meng Wanzhou joined Huawei.

Picture: In 1987, Shenzhen, Ren Zhengfei founded Huawei with 21,000 yuan. From Huawei official website

The young Meng Wanzhou experienced Huawei's founding years. At that time, Huawei was still in the market development stage, and Meng Wanzhou had many responsibilities. She worked as a secretary, assisted the sales and service departments, and was responsible for typing, making product catalogs, arranging exhibitions and conferences, etc. It was trivial and hard work. Anonymous, she hone her character in trivial matters with no end in sight.

Huawei Entrepreneurship Team

Why does the daughter of a dignified boss have to do such trivial and hard work? This is because Ren Zhengfei told her that her job experience can help her accumulate social experience.

Regarding this experience, the outside world later described it like this: a clumsy handyman. In her own later memories, she said: "I was one of only three secretaries in Huawei's early years."

An example that is often cited as proof is that in 1996, Huawei participated in the International Communications Exhibition for the first time, and Meng Wanzhou went to Moscow with the delegation. The boss asked her and another colleague to exchange the US dollars into rubles. When dozens of bundles of rubles were pushed out of the window, Meng Wanzhou felt the amplifying effect of the exchange rate for the first time. Her heart was beating nervously, and she picked up the money and ran to the hotel. After returning to the room, locking the door, and counting carefully, I discovered that 100 US dollars in rubles were missing.

But fortunately, the leader understood their situation at the time and did not blame them too much.

Such an incident had a great impact on Meng Wanzhou's future management. Later, in an internal article in "The Sea is Tolerant of All Rivers, Tolerance is Great", she wrote - "During this busy and young time, everyone gave me Every bit of warmth and tolerance flowed into my heart, and I still remember it. Huawei tolerated our ignorance, immaturity, stubbornness, and even mistakes. Behind the countless soldiers who fought fiercely on the battlefield without flinching, tolerance has always been a blessing. Color that won’t fade.”

Later, no matter where she was, she always retained this warmth and tolerance.

A widely circulated story is that at an annual meeting, she asked everyone not to call her President Meng, but Wanzhou, and then like a cute little girl, she walked off the stage and hugged everyone one by one.

In 1997, after working as a part-timer, Meng Wanzhou entered Huazhong University of Science and Technology to pursue a master's degree in accounting. After graduation, she worked in Huawei's financial department, which is where her career truly began.

But it's also no easy task. A big family and a big business have two separate lines of income and expenditure, and everything needs to be returned to the warehouse. Failure to do so will affect the company's business efficiency and even overall development. Ren Zhengfei once compared Huawei's finances with "a Hanyang gun": "A large number of young people, who are just starting out and don't understand anything, go to the battlefield with a Hanyang gun."

But by 2009, this gun "brought down the cruise missile." As the leader of Huawei's financial system reform, Meng Wanzhou played an important role in it.

These financial directors go deep into each business department of Huawei and embed standardized financial processes into Huawei's entire operating process, making refined management one of the genes of Huawei's continued growth, allowing Huawei to have businesses in more than 170 countries around the world. And the huge "elephant" in the area can also dance flexibly.

She has also served as the company's international accounting director, chief financial officer of Huawei Hong Kong, and president of the accounting management department. He currently serves as Vice Chairman, Rotating Chairman, and CFO of the Company.

It was not until 2011 that Meng Wanzhou made her identity public after she was promoted to CFO. At this time, she had worked at Huawei for 18 years . The length of this dormant period was enough to prove that her father did not give her much direct protection and companionship during her growth.

But her work was greatly recognized by her father . In 2017, Peking University management professor Chen Chunhua asked Ren Zhengfei: "What is the real core point of Huawei's success?" Ren Zhengfei bluntly said that it is the financial system and human resources system. He did not name his daughter Meng Wanzhou, but his admiration and admiration were obvious.

At about the same time, in a speech at Tsinghua University, Meng Wanzhou borrowed Bacon's words: The golden age is right before our eyes. This is also her golden age and Huawei's golden age.

Picture: Meng Wanzhou’s speech at Tsinghua University

Meng Wanzhou, whose career was at its peak, was about to show off her ambitions, but in 2018, there was a turning point.

On December 1, 2018, as usual, Meng Wanzhou was on a business trip overseas and was in transit at Vancouver International Airport when she was detained by Canadian police "in response to an arrest warrant issued by the United States." This is a political persecution against Chinese citizens planned by the United States. The purpose is to suppress Chinese high-tech enterprises and hinder China's scientific and technological development.

At that time, foreign media made predictions based on historical data from Canadian extradition trials: the probability of Meng Wanzhou's extradition being revoked was only 1%.

In other words, during this long 1,028-day detention, no one knew when this dark life would end, nor was it certain whether she would have the chance to return to her motherland for the rest of her life. But she was not defeated, as she wrote in her open letter:

"This year I have experienced fear and pain, disappointment and helplessness, suffering and struggle. This year, I have learned to endure with strength, face it calmly, and not be afraid of the unknown."

That's what she said, and that's what she did.

在1028天里的无数次审讯中，她从未失过一分体面 。每次出庭，她都保持着装得体，仪态大方，从容不迫，就连电子脚镣，在她那都彷佛成了一件时尚单品。

During these 1,028 days, Ren Zhengfei also expressed to the outside world that he was "very distressed", but at the same time, he also said that Meng Wanzhou was suffering, but he would become stronger because of it.

The three years when Meng Wanzhou lost her freedom were also the three years when Huawei's business was "bearing a heavy burden" . The development of its consumer business, which is mainly mobile phone products, was seriously affected.

Since then, Huawei has launched a "two-front battle" model. On the one hand, it has actively sought new profit growth points by launching the Hongmeng system and accelerating the deployment of other businesses. On the other hand, Meng Wanzhou's team has also been fighting through legal procedures. .

Everyone is looking forward to her early return. Even the children in the homes of Huawei employees drew an oil painting of the evening boat returning, looking forward to her "return".

In the end, with the efforts of many parties, Meng Wanzhou successfully returned to the motherland on September 25, 2021 . During her slow live broadcast back in China, the total number of likes on the new media platform affiliated with CCTV reached 400 million, which is almost more than the combined population of the United States and Canada.

On the same day, the People's Daily commented: "No force can stop China's progress."

One month after returning to China, Meng Wanzhou returned to work at Huawei. The video shows that Huawei employees at the scene were joyful and the atmosphere was warm, like a festival.

On March 29, 2022, Meng Wanzhou appeared at Huawei's annual financial report conference. This was her first public appearance since returning to China. She wore a black skirt with a white butterfly brooch, which means "breaking out of a cocoon and becoming a butterfly."

As CFO, she releases the 2021 Huawei Annual Report on behalf of Huawei. She said: " In 2021, for Huawei, it may have passed through the 'black zone' of this disaster ."

In fact, it is not only Huawei that has "passed through the black zone" and "changed greatly" in recent years, but also Meng Wanzhou herself. Her experiences in the past four years have made her an important "spiritual totem" of Huawei.

"Under her leadership, Huawei Finance has become the world's leading digital and intelligent financial organization, creating a solid and reliable operating foundation for Huawei and helping the company realize its strategy in the new era." Huawei's official website describes it this way.

On April 1, 2022, Huawei issued an announcement and completed the election of the Supervisory Board. Meng Wanzhou succeeded Guo Ping as Huawei's rotating chairman.

Many people in the industry said this promotion was "a natural progression". It can be said that all this has come to fruition as expected. With the change of position, she is about to face a more complex Huawei that urgently needs to accelerate its progress.

It is undeniable that she is a person who has inherited the glory of her father's generation, but has more comprehensive abilities.

From 1993 to today, in 30 years, Huawei has leapt from the "small company" Meng Wanzhou once described to the company ranked 44th among the Fortune Global 500 in 2021, and Meng Wanzhou has also gone from A "go-lucky" girl who was always busy changing calls was promoted to the company's Vice Chairman, Rotating Chairman, and CFO, who is now regarded by everyone as a gentle, firm and calm person.

Tomorrow, Meng Wanzhou will serve as rotating chairman and become the company’s top leader.

As a senior expert said, "In the future, I believe Meng Wanzhou will better utilize her management capabilities, and at the same time bring out the delicate and coordination skills of women, becoming a beneficial influence in Huawei's development." '.

As Huawei wrote in the "Announcement on the Company's Rotating Chairman's Duty", "Under her leadership, Huawei Finance has become the world's leading digital and intelligent financial organization, creating a solid and reliable operation for Huawei. The foundation helps the company realize its strategy in the new era.”

Bless Meng Wanzhou and Huawei!