Chang'an has welcomed a group of "young old people"

In 2014, Zhu Huarong, then 49 years old, took office as the President of Changan Automobile. Since then, he has spent 6 years as the President and 6 years as the Chairman of Changan. Zhu Huarong witnessed Changan Automobile's peak sales of 3.06 million units in 2016, and also experienced its trough of 1.76 million units in 2019.

When he led Changan Automobile to hit 2.913 million units again in 2025, all people saw the resilience of this automaker, as well as Zhu Huarong's outstanding work competence and leadership skills. It can be said that during his 12-year tenure at the helm, he led Changan, this state-owned enterprise, to fight tough battles just like a private enterprise.

On September 17 this year, Changan Automobile released an announcement to complete the board of directors re-election, and Zhu Huarong was re-elected as the chairman of the listed company. However, only 29 days later on October 16, Changan Automobile issued another announcement, stating that it had received the written resignation report submitted by Zhu Huarong, and announced the new chairman and president, who are former President Zhao Fei and former Executive Executive Vice President Ye Pei respectively.

At present, Zhu Huarong continues to serve as the Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of China Changan Automobile Group Co., Ltd. (China Changan Automobile), and no longer holds any position in the company and its holding subsidiaries. He stated that China Changan needs to focus more on strategic guidance, while Changan Automobile should further strengthen its market-oriented, global and international operation capabilities to cope with the competition in the global automotive market.

In fact, from 2014 to the latest leadership team, Changan Automobile has experienced three generations of senior management teams, namely Zhang Baolin + Zhu Huarong, Zhu Huarong + Wang Jun / Zhao Fei, and Zhao Fei + Ye Pei. No matter which generation of senior executives, just like Zhu Huarong in those years, have all gone through the V-shaped reversal of Changan Automobile. That is to say, they are all "old-timers of Changan".

Last year, Changan Automobile was promoted to a first-class central enterprise, and 60-year-old Zhu Huarong also renewed his contract, meaning Changan Automobile is about to enter the next development cycle. At this time, Zhu Huarong decided to shift his focus to the headquarters of China Changan Automobile, which indicates that he has completed his phased historical mission and passed the baton to the core backbones of the next generation.

Many people believe that the recent changes of chairman and president of Changan Automobile have fully reflected that the enterprise has a sound and complete internal talent cultivation and promotion mechanism, which guarantees the consistency and stability of strategic implementation in a complex market environment.

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The key point is that each generation of core senior executives are generally around 50 years old when they take office. For example, Zhu Huarong became president at the age of 49 and was promoted to chairman at 55; Wang Jun became president at the age of 48 and was transferred later; Zhao Fei became president at the age of 51 and was promoted to chairman at 52; Ye Pei served as vice president at the age of 43 and was promoted to president at 51.

Meanwhile, Changan Automobile also announced other senior management appointments. 52-year-old Yang Dayong no longer serves as the Executive Vice President of Chongqing Changan Automobile, and takes the position of Executive Executive Vice President of Changan Automobile; 40-year-old Deng Chenghao is promoted from Vice President of Changan Automobile to Executive Vice President of Changan Automobile.

External evaluations point out that they are all in the prime period of entrepreneurship with rich experience and abundant energy, which ensures the vitality and forward-looking of the enterprise's decision-making.

According to their work experience, an interesting point is that the four newly appointed senior executives above present a very clear differentiated division of labor within the Changan system.

Chairman Zhao Fei started his career as an engine technician, and moved up all the way from technical supervisor, director of the research institute to the core management of joint ventures, auto parts groups and the group headquarters. His nearly 30-year career almost covers every key link of Changan's transformation from a traditional manufacturer to a technology company, and he has deeply participated in and promoted all-round work in the management of every enterprise he served in.

President Ye Pei started as the acting deputy section chief of Jiangling Engine Branch, and then successively served as General Manager of Nanjing Changan, Director of Strategic Planning Department, General Manager of Sedan Sales Division, General Manager of Passenger Vehicle Marketing Division, until Executive Executive Vice President. His resume almost covers the core links of production, strategy, marketing, human resources and other key sectors. Most importantly, he participated in promoting the market performance of many core models in the CS series, which fully demonstrates that he has a good grasp of products and market rules, as well as strong execution capability.

Executive Executive Vice President Yang Dayong started from a grassroots position in the Marketing Department. He has received training in the independent brand system, participated in the early construction of Changan's new energy business, and also served as the Executive Vice President of Changan Ford. Later, he was in charge of Changan UNI, the traditional fuel vehicle business, and Changan Qiyuan, the new energy transformation brand, and carried out distinct positioning for the two brands. For example, Qiyuan focuses on inclusive technology, sinking capabilities such as long range and high-level suspension to the mainstream family market, while UNI adheres to making fuel vehicles smarter, more fuel-efficient and more reliable, responding to the doubts about why fuel vehicles are still developed in the new energy era.

Executive Vice President Deng Chenghao worked his way up from Deputy General Manager of the Power Development Department in Changan's new energy system to Chairman of Deepal Auto, leading the definition and development of core products including Deepal SL03, S07 and G318. But he also frankly admitted that market operation and marketing are his relatively weak areas. The reason why Deepal later introduced Jiang Hairong, a CEO with ICT marketing background, is exactly to complement the capabilities of user insight and marketing system on the basis of their existing strengths in product definition and technology R&D.

Certainly, today's Changan Automobile, like all other Chinese automakers, is going through a critical transformation period, so to some extent, Changan Automobile may face a new round of V-shaped cycle. Zhu Huarong once encountered two most severe challenges: the growth ceiling of independent brands and the cliff-like decline of joint venture brand sales.

Fortunately, from the perspective of development over the years, he has led Changan to move forward steadily for the better. The new generation of leadership team is facing even more challenges and difficulties than before.

At present, Changan Automobile's three major plans, namely the new energy "Shangri-La" plan, the intelligent "Beidou Tianshu" plan and the globalization "Haina Baichuan" plan, as well as the blueprint of achieving 5 million vehicle sales (2 million units overseas) in 2030 and 6 million units in 2035 to rank among the top ten global automakers, remain unchanged.

And we can also see that Changan Automobile still has many problems to solve in the short term, such as the synergy effect of AVATR and Deepal's "front-end independence, middle and back-end collaboration", phased breakthroughs in overseas markets, market value management of the listed company and so on. These are all tough battles that the new senior management team has to face directly, and also the touchstone to test the performance of this leadership team.

It is reported that Changan Automobile has established the AD Coordinated Development Department, where AD is taken from the first letters of AVATR and Deepal. The department has several secondary divisions under it, including Planning and Cooperation Division, Market Product Division, Human Resource Sharing Center, Financial Sharing Center and General Office, to undertake corresponding businesses entrusted by Deepal Auto and AVATR. Deng Chenghao concurrently serves as the General Manager of the AD Coordinated Development Department, and Chen Zhuo, Chairman of AVATR Technology, concurrently serves as the Executive Deputy General Manager.

In fact, it can be seen that this is only the streamlining and collaboration of internal departments, which does not fundamentally solve the problems of AVATR and Deepal. On the market side, AVATR is facing the pressure of sales volume and profitability, while Deepal is facing the problem of vague brand recognition, and both of them are facing the dual challenges from external competition. Under such circumstances, the leadership team still needs to play a full role.

Another problem is the stock price of Changan Automobile. Although the stock prices of the entire automotive industry have been more or less impacted significantly since the beginning of this year, the continuous decline of Changan Automobile's stock price is even at a relatively low level among the whole automotive vehicle sector. This is hard to match its identity as a central state-owned enterprise, as well as various favorable technology implementations and new product launches.

But in any case, the new senior management team has taken office, and they have noticed all these situations. Solving short-term problems and coping with long-term challenges cannot be achieved overnight. After all, Changan Automobile as the public knows is an enterprise with strong cyclical characteristics.

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "Auto Community" (ID: iAUTO2010), written by Yang Jing, and published with authorization from 36Kr.