Wei Jianjun restarts local executives, and the CEO of Wei brand's Ideal-style division is sacked after half a year.

After 9 years in business and selling approximately 600,000 cars, "consuming" 7 CEOs ——

Wei Jianjun's high - end Wei brand, named after him, has been constantly setting records in the "cost - effectiveness ratio" of senior executives, leaving its competitors far behind:

Yes, the Wei brand has changed its CEO again. The 8th CEO has just taken office.

Feng Fuzhi, the former CEO recruited from a new - force car company, was suddenly removed from his position just half a year after his first public appearance.

How did Feng Fuzhi, who left, try to restart the Wei brand?

At the end of May this year, Feng Fuzhi made his first public appearance as the CEO of the Wei brand:

At that time, the upgraded version of the Wei brand's Lanshan was launched. For the first time among all the products of Great Wall's brands, it standardized high - level intelligent assisted driving from parking space to parking space across the entire series. This was the first shot in Great Wall's intelligentization drive, enabling it to catch up with the first - tier players in terms of technology and user experience overnight.

Not only in terms of technology, but the entire Wei brand also started to present a completely different model from this Lanshan upgrade: new concepts, new cars, and new channels. These were the main tasks of CEO Feng Fuzhi.

The first change was that the Wei brand clearly put the user at the center for the first time.

It wasn't just lip service but a combination of words and deeds. For example, the official once mentioned the case of "picking up the car in 9 hours". Simply put, a customer in Beijing was in a hurry to pick up the car. Eventually, resources were quickly mobilized, and a series of tasks including vehicle transportation, arrival at the store, and vehicle registration were completed within 9 hours, and the car was finally delivered to the customer.

The improvements in safety and intelligentization were responses to the "public demand", which were mainly reflected in the Gaoshan MPV and Lanshan.

"From parking space to parking space, covering all scenarios". This is a further upgrade of urban NOA after it became "available nationwide", representing the most advanced experience in current intelligent assisted driving.

The second change —— increasing direct - sales efforts.

Wei Jianjun believes that the requirement of "making the brand visible, accessible, and reliable to users" requires long - term and high - cost investment. It is unrealistic to entrust this to dealers. From the perspective of directly understanding user needs, this work should not be outsourced.

The Great Wall Smart Choice direct - sales stores were the most important task that Feng Fuzhi was responsible for after joining the Great Wall Group.

Feng Fuzhi was once a retail operator in consumer electronics companies. He has worked in Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi, and OnePlus, responsible for new retail business. Later, he switched to the automotive field, single - handedly building the direct - sales channels for Li Auto, a new - force car brand, from scratch. He also worked on channel management at XPeng. He joined Great Wall Motors at the end of 2023.

At the Shanghai Auto Show in April, Feng Fuzhi's public title was still the vice - president of Great Wall. Less than a month later, he directly changed from the person in charge of channel reform to the CEO of the Wei brand.

Feng Fuzhi's idea of transforming and restarting the Wei brand from the channel aspect was very clear:

Turn the Wei brand into a "new - force" under Great Wall, replicate the operation methods and discourse systems of NIO, XPeng, and Li Auto, clarify the technology advantages, and sell the cars.

It did produce immediate results. Since this year, the Wei brand has quickly recovered. From January to November, the cumulative sales volume was 89,100 vehicles, a year - on - year increase of 93.94%. Among them, the single - month sales volume in November was 12,800 vehicles, a year - on - year increase of 81.14%.

Even the MPV model Lanshan won the sales championship in the new - energy vehicle category.

Normally, Feng Fuzhi's performance this year was quite good, especially for the Wei brand, which had been struggling with low sales.

His sudden departure without warning was really unexpected.

Considering the history of the Wei brand changing its CEOs like a revolving lantern since its establishment, there are still many speculations about this change. For example, Caizhongshe believes that Feng Fuzhi left because Wei Jianjun set an "unachievable sales target".

Many reports mentioned that when Feng Fuzhi was promoted to the CEO of the Wei brand in May 2024, Wei Jianjun set the goal of "opening 1,000 stores within a year" for the Wei brand. However, as of November 2025, only more than 500 stores had been opened, which did not meet Wei Jianjun's expectations.

This is also the view of most public opinions: Wei Jianjun set the KPIs too high, and Feng Fuzhi failed to fulfill his "military order", so he was removed from his position.

However, AI4Auto also provides a different perspective:

In May this year, the upgraded version of Lanshan was launched at the first direct - sales store of Great Wall Smart Choice in Shanghai.

In Feng Fuzhi's public speech, he clearly stated that the number of direct - sales stores of the Wei brand should be expanded to 600 by the end of the year. At that time, Wei Jianjun was sitting in the front row, showing no sign of disagreement with the "600 direct - sales stores". He also did not mention the KPI of "1,000 stores" in his subsequent speech on stage.

Instead, he gave a lot of affirmation and praise to Feng Fuzhi's work. Even Wei Jianjun himself changed his "authoritative" style, dressed in T - shirts and white sneakers like Steve Jobs and Lei Jun, and tried his best to use a discourse system closer to that of technology companies.

Considering Feng Fuzhi's work experience in technology giants, it can be inferred that Wei Jianjun highly recognized and supported the work of this Wei brand CEO at least half a year ago.

Therefore, this change of leadership has sparked a lot of discussions outside.

What is the background of Zhao Yongpo, the successor?

Zhao Yongpo is a complete in - house talent at Great Wall Motors. He doesn't have a dazzling overseas study background from a prestigious university. He graduated from the School of Mechanical Engineering of Hebei University of Technology and joined Great Wall Motors in 1998.

With a career spanning over 25 years, he is a typical senior executive who grew up from a technical R & D position.

He has long been rooted in the front - line of technology. Since 2005, he has served as the deputy dean of the Great Wall Motors Technology Research Institute, responsible for chassis design and development.

Subsequently, Zhao Yongpo was also responsible for the development of the electronic control system and transmission of new - energy vehicles. The 7DCT transmission he led to develop once won the title of "Top Ten Transmissions in the World".

In 2018, he began to serve as the deputy general manager of the Great Wall Motors Technology Center, responsible for the overall vehicle technology planning and R & D, rising from the person in charge of basic technology to the top position in the vehicle model platform and technology system of the entire group.

In 2020, Zhao Yongpo was transferred to the Product Strategy and Product Planning Center, responsible for product planning, expanding his role from technical R & D to product and market strategy.

At the beginning of 2023, he officially became the general manager of the Haval brand, fully responsible for brand operation, product planning, and market sales. At that time, Haval had lost the SUV sales championship under the impact of BYD, and the first - generation Xiaolong MAX, which was supposed to be a "big move", failed to make a splash. The new - energy business of Great Wall was at its lowest point.

During his tenure at Haval, Zhao Yongpo mainly did two things. One was to quickly upgrade the fuel - powered H6 to stabilize the basic market share as much as possible. The other was to create new - energy best - sellers to make up for the gradually declining sales of fuel - powered vehicles, such as the popular new - generation Menglong and Dagou.

In 2024, the sales volume of Haval was 706,234 vehicles, a slight year - on - year decline of about 1.5%. It was the first year to reverse the decline and stabilize the sales.

From January to September 2025, the cumulative sales volume of Haval was 528,483 vehicles, a year - on - year increase of 12.03%, with an obvious growth rate, which also led the entire Great Wall Motors back to the growth track ——

Being a "fire - fighting captain" might be the core reason for Zhao Yongpo to take over as the CEO of the Wei brand.

What kind of Wei brand did Zhao Yongpo take over?

On the one hand, the brand operation mode has been fully restarted in a new - force way, which was mainly the work of Feng Fuzhi.

On the other hand, in terms of product strength, it has fully embraced intelligentization. While firing the first shot for Great Wall, it has also enabled Great Wall to stand firmly in the first - tier in the high - level L2+ competition.

In the past two days, the pre - sale of the VLA version of Lanshan has also started. Great Wall is very likely to become the second player after Li Auto and compete with XPeng Motors to be one of the top three intelligent car manufacturers to mass - produce VLA.

The technology is developed in cooperation with DeepRoute.ai, and internally, Wu Huixiao, the CTO of Great Wall, is responsible for related projects.

With brand and technology innovation, the Wei brand has achieved a significant increase in sales this year.

Especially the upgraded version of the Gaoshan MPV unexpectedly became a hit. After the growth of hardcore off - road vehicles reached its peak, it has become the second engine driving Great Wall's high - margin and high - growth.

In summary, when the 8th CEO of the Wei brand took office, the