Ren Zhengfei resigns! Huawei executives retreat from the front line

The soul of Huawei, the global 5G leader and representative of Chinese high-tech, resigned from the position of director of Shanghai Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. on April 10. The legal representative was also changed from Sun Yafang to Tian Xingpu. In addition, four directors, namely Hu Houkun, Xu Wenwei, Xu Zhijun and Guo Ping, also resigned. Three new directors, namely Dong Qingyang, Chen Zhidong and Tian Xingpu, were added.

Image source: Qichacha

Shanghai Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. was established on January 16, 2001. Its main businesses include software development, technical services in the field of communication technology, research and development and sales of communication equipment and consulting services/after-sales services for related projects, system engineering integration, domestic trade and other businesses.

Huawei has not yet announced the reasons why Huawei's main executives, represented by Ren Zhengfei, withdrew from the subsidiary. However, OFweek found that from the second half of 2019 to the present, there have been concentrated changes in the directors of Huawei's subsidiaries. The details are as follows:

① On November 22, 2019, Sun Yafang, Ren Zhengfei, Xu Wenwei, Guo Ping and others withdrew from Beijing Huawei Digital Technology Co., Ltd., and Tian Xingpu took over as the legal representative and chairman;

② On December 30, 2019, Guo Ping and Meng Wanzhou resigned from Hangzhou Huawei Enterprise Communications Technology Co., Ltd. and were replaced by Tian Xingpu and Pang Yunguang;

③In March 2020, Wang Tao and Gao Aozhan withdrew from Chengdu Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., and were replaced by Tian Xingpu and Chen Zhidong.

Among them, Tian Xingpu successively took over as chairman of Beijing Huawei Digital Technology Co., Ltd., Hangzhou Huawei Communications Technology Co., Ltd., Chengdu Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. and Shanghai Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.

Some analysts believe that Huawei adjusted the directors of the second-tier companies to the actual persons in charge of the second-tier companies, and the directors of Huawei headquarters withdrew from the second-tier companies. This move is to increase the autonomy of the second-tier companies. There is also little public information about the main successor Tian Xingpu. He was formerly the director of the Beijing Huawei Research Institute. The rapid succession seems to be implementing what Ren Zhengfei said before: "Selecting people on the front line and promoting them in the trenches, we need to increase the fresh blood of our company."

Some analysts also believe that this is also a preparation for Ren Zhengfei's retirement. Ren Zhengfei is 76 years old this year. After Huawei was suppressed by the United States, he publicly stated that he had reached retirement age, but because of US sanctions, Huawei's situation was not optimistic, so he must stand up to stabilize Huawei's situation and give all Huawei employees a "peace of mind pill."

Currently, Ren Zhengfei serves as a senior executive in eight Huawei companies, namely Huawei Investment Holding Co., Ltd. (Huawei's parent company), Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei's business operating entity), Huawei Integrated Circuit Design Co., Ltd., Huawei Information Systems Engineering Co., Ltd., Huawei Training Academy Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Huawei Technologies Software Co., Ltd., Huawei Anjiexin Electric Co., Ltd. and Shanghai Yumeng Communication Technology Co., Ltd. Ren Zhengfei currently holds approximately 0.94% of the shares.

Since the United States cracked down on ZTE, Huawei has been actively preparing and guarding against it. When the United States officially took action against Huawei, Huawei successively launched a series of 7nm high-end chips, launched a backup plan, domestic substitution, and launched the operating system in advance. In response to the US encirclement and the impact of the new coronavirus pneumonia epidemic, even though it achieved a revenue of 850 billion yuan with an 18% growth rate in 2019, "survival" has become Huawei's first goal in 2020.

In order to break through the US blockade, Huawei has not only continued to maintain its original advantages and ecosystem, but has also made breakthroughs in core components such as RF chips and IGBTs, and has achieved some results.