Breaking news: GUO Rui, former CMO of Honor, has been appointed as the Chairman and CEO of Zhijie Automobile.

ZhiJie welcomes a chairman and CEO with a "Huawei-related" background.

According to CheDongXi on April 2nd, just now, ZhiJie Automobile announced that Guo Rui has been appointed as the chairman and CEO, taking full charge of the company's operation and management, effective immediately. There were relevant rumors at the beginning of the year, and now the matter has been finalized.

▲Guo Rui appointed as Chairman and CEO of ZhiJie

It is reported that Guo Rui graduated from the School of Electronics Engineering and Computer Science at Peking University, obtaining a Doctor of Science degree. From 2017 to 2021, he served as the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of Huawei Terminal Greater China.

In August 2021, he joined the newly independent Honor as a founding team member, taking full charge of the construction of Honor's brand marketing system. On December 12, 2025, it was officially announced that he resigned from the positions of Honor's brand marketing president, group CMO, member of the Executive Management Team (EMT), and member of the Investment Review Board (IRB), saying that he would meet again in the "glory of the next stop in technology."

During his tenure, Guo Rui promoted the implementation of Honor's edge-side AI in the consumer market worth hundreds of billions, helping the global market to rise from "almost zero" at the initial stage of Honor's independence to the top five in most regions of the world. The sales volume of high-end models priced above $600 (approximately RMB 4,131) once broke into the top five globally.

This is another significant personnel arrangement for ZhiJie Automobile in 2026. Zhao Changjiang, the former general manager of the Denza brand who joined ZhiJie not long ago, will become Guo Rui's deputy, responsible for the sales, marketing, and user operation of the ZhiJie brand. After the addition of Guo Rui and Zhao Changjiang, the ZhiJie brand, a collaboration between Huawei and Chery, has entered a new stage of development.

01. Former Honor CMO Appointed as Chairman and CEO of ZhiJie

According to public information, Dr. Guo Rui graduated from the School of Electronics Engineering and Computer Science at Peking University, with many academic achievements in fields such as quantum system simulation and machine learning. He has both technical and marketing backgrounds.

He early held core management positions in global fast-moving consumer goods companies such as Procter & Gamble, COFCO, and Mengniu. In 2017, Guo Rui joined Huawei and served as the CMO of Huawei Terminal Greater China.

▲Guo Rui, former Honor CMO

In 2021, as Honor was spun off from Huawei, Guo Rui joined the newly independent Honor as a founding management team member, serving as the senior vice president of Honor, the president of the brand marketing system, and concurrently as a member of the company's Investment Review Board (IRB) and the group CMO, unifying the management of the brand and marketing systems.

▲Guo Rui, former Honor CMO

Guo Rui's main contributions during his tenure at Honor Group include: promoting Honor's high-end models priced above $600 (approximately RMB 4,131) in the overseas market to rank among the top five globally in 2024, and for the first time, Honor's foldable screens surpassed Samsung to top the Western European market; in 2025, he concurrently served as the CMO of the Chinese market, leading the upgrade of MagicOS and the large-scale implementation of edge-side AI.

On December 12, 2025, Guo Rui posted on his WeChat Moments that he had left Honor.

▲Guo Rui revealed on his WeChat Moments that he left Honor

02. ZhiJie Speeds Up New Product Launches: MPV and SUV to Be Released

As the second brand among the "Five Brands," ZhiJie is an intelligent electric brand jointly created by Hongmeng Smart Mobility and Chery. Since its debut in 2023, it has launched two products, namely the mid-large pure-electric sedan S7 and the large and medium-sized pure-electric SUV R7, targeting the market in the price range of 200,000 - 300,000 yuan.

At the beginning of 2026, ZhiJie has also stepped on the accelerator.

He Gang, CEO of Huawei Terminal BG, revealed that the exhibition cars of the first flagship MPV under Hongmeng Smart Mobility, the ZhiJie V9, will be on display in stores in late April 2026 and will be officially launched soon.

Yu Chengdong once gave a very high evaluation of this car, saying that it has extremely high-end configurations and will become "the best MPV on the road."

▲Yu Chengdong said that the ZhiJie V9 is "the best MPV on the road"

In the view of Zhao Changjiang, the executive director and executive vice president of the ZhiJie brand, "it is conservatively estimated that there will be no rivals in three years."

▲Zhao Changjiang said that the ZhiJie V9 "has no rivals in three years"

It is reported that the new car may be equipped with Huawei's Qiankun ADS 4 high-level intelligent driving system, or a new 896-line dual-optical path image-level lidar, supporting full-scenario assisted driving. It will be equipped with Huawei's Snowy Owl intelligent range-extending system (1.5T range extender + DriveONE motor), with a pure-electric range of 223 kilometers and a comprehensive range of over 1,250 kilometers.

▲Zhao Changjiang posted to reveal details of the ZhiJie V9

As a strategic model for Hongmeng Smart Mobility to complete its MPV product line, the launch of the ZhiJie V9 will improve the brand's product matrix and directly target the high-end MPV market.

▲ZhiJie V9

The current high-end MPV market is already highly competitive. Traditional fuel MPVs such as the Toyota Sienna and Buick GL8 still maintain stable sales. Among new energy MPVs, models like the Denza D9 and Zeekr 009 also occupy a certain market share. By the time the ZhiJie V9 enters the market, it has already become a highly competitive market.

In addition to the ZhiJie V9, Yin Tongyue, the chairman of Chery Group, previously revealed that ZhiJie also has a high - appearance SUV model. The internal goal for this car is set very high, and it may be launched this autumn. It is rumored that this model may be named the ZhiJie R9.

▲Yin Tongyue, Chairman of Chery Group

03. Conclusion: Huawei-related Talents Empower the Automotive Industry

Guo Rui's joining is not only a signal of the accelerated expansion of the ZhiJie brand but also another microcosm of the continuous influx of "Huawei-related" talents into the automotive track.

Before this personnel change, Zhao Ming, the former CEO of Honor, joined Qianli Technology, which also confirms the trend of top technology talents migrating to the AI and automotive industries.

As the focus of competition in the automotive industry shifts from electrification to intelligence, the choices of these "Huawei-related" veterans reflect the broad prospects of the integration of the automotive and AI industries and inject more imagination into the global breakthrough of Chinese intelligent automotive brands.

This article is from the WeChat official account "CheDongXi", author: Guo Yue. Republished by 36Kr with permission.