Internet executives 'run away'

Not all executives who have left from big Internet companies have gone to traditional industries, and those with traditional industry backgrounds are more likely to "escape" to traditional companies.

Written by | Guo Chaofei

Is the Internet no longer popular?

On October 10, Lee Kum Kee, a century-old sauce company, officially welcomed its new CEO, Jing Jie. Before that, Jing Jie worked for Alibaba and served as vice president of Alibaba and president of Tmall. Lee Kum Kee has high hopes for Jingjie, hoping that it will bring experience from the digital and Internet technology industries and many food and fast-moving consumer goods companies, "and will continue to lead the company's business transformation, driving innovation, digitization and customer-centric initiatives."

Coincidentally, after going through several Internet companies, Liu Zhen also chose to leave.

In 2015, Liu Zhen turned from a lawyer to become the head of Uber China's strategy. She joined Toutiao after Didi merged with Uber China the following year. In May 2020, Liu Zhen changed direction again. This time, she chose to leave the Internet company, join the consumer industry, and join the new consumer company Yuanqi Forest, responsible for overseas business. In March 2022, Liu Zhen resigned from Yuanqi Forest.

In fact, in recent years, there have been many executives who have returned from the Internet technology industry to traditional companies, especially in the fields of financial technology and Internet car manufacturing.

In July this year, Yin Ming, the former vice president of Ant Group, joined Sunshine Insurance Group as the general manager of the operations center and the deputy general manager of the command center. It is quite dramatic that in January 2021, as the vice president of Ant Group and the president of the insurance business group of Ant Group, Yin Ming resigned from Ant Group for the first time and joined Sunshine Property Insurance as the general manager. He returned only a few months later. Ant, leaving again in 2022.

You know, once upon a time, Yin Ming and a group of executives from traditional financial institutions laid a talent foundation for the development of Ant.

Changes in the automotive industry are more frequent. In June 2022, Zhu Jiang resigned from Jidu Auto, a subsidiary of Baidu, after he was the vice president of Jidu. In May 2020, he left the position of vice president of NIO's user development and joined Ford China. In 2021, he transferred from Ford to Jidu.

Similarly, Xiang Dongping, who was previously the co-founder, director, and CMO of Skyline Motors, became the vice president of Hyundai Motor Group (China), the deputy general manager of Beijing Hyundai, and the head of the sales department shortly after he left in March 2020. In 2021, he will become the vice president of Jiangling Motors and the general manager of Jiangling Ford.

Not all executives leaving from big Internet companies have gone to traditional industries, but those with a background in traditional industries are more likely to "escape" to traditional companies.

after marginalization

In 2015, Jing Jie joined Ali. Although he came from a technical background, he has been in the traditional retail industry before, and has experience in large companies such as Procter & Gamble and COFCO.

In 1998, Jing Jie joined the marketing department of P&G, and served brands such as Rejoice, Crest, SK-II, Olay and Pampers, and later became the vice president of brand operations of P&G Greater China. In 2012, he moved to COFCO and served as the general manager of the brand management department and the general manager of the convenience food category management department. Later, he was responsible for China's food e-commerce business.

Ali insiders once told me that before Jack Ma proposed new retail in 2016, Ali judged that online and offline will be fully integrated in the future. That is to say, since then, Ali has begun to search for talents with rich industry and business experience in various fields.

In this way, Jing Jie entered Ali's sight and was recruited under his command.

Jing Jie, CEO of Lee Kum Kee, former Vice President of Ali and President of Tmall

He started from the Tmall Marketing Department and the Group's Key Account Department, and soon became the head of the Tmall FMCG business group newly established in December 2016, and was also in charge of Tmall Supermarket. At that time, JD.com competed with Ali in the field of fast-moving consumer goods, and Jing Jie was the third person in charge of Tmall Supermarket in 2016.

Since he is very familiar with the fast-moving consumer goods industry, he had a very deep communication with the merchants and was able to deeply understand the ideas of the merchants. After Ali proposed new retail, Jing Jie proposed "Alibaba's consumer operation model". In his view, the fast-moving consumer goods industry can make changes together. To acquire consumers and retain consumers, use sustainable operations. The method has become the new operational logic and specific implementation means of the entire industry.

A year later, Jing Jie ushered in his high-profile moment in Ali and was appointed as the president of Tmall. At the same time, Jiang Fan became the president of Taobao.

Alibaba CEO Zhang Yong did not hesitate to praise his words, saying that Jingjie has rich business experience, has a deep understanding of customer pain points, and can make clear business strategies based on this, and also has unique insights into organizational construction.

However, over the next year or so, Jing Jie's life in Ali began not to be so good. It is said that the performance of Tmall on Double Eleven in 2018 was not up to standard, and even only three small departments completed KPIs. In March 2019, Jiang Fan also served as the president of Tmall, and Jing Jie was arranged as Zhang Yong's assistant. CEO assistant, in many cases, it is not a good signal in Ali. Zhang Yong has many assistants in different periods, and the next step for a considerable part is to leave. Although Jingjie was also given the title of Secretary General of the Enterprise Service System of Ali's Digital Economy, this is obviously a virtual post and does not make much sense.

In the end, Jing Jie had to leave. What the outside world did not expect was that he would return to the traditional fast-moving consumer goods industry again. Right now, Haitian, Lee Kum Kee's opponent, is encountering the "double standard" storm of additives. Jing Jie is not only familiar with fast-moving consumer goods, but also understands e-commerce and the Internet. Can he make Lee Kum Kee surpass it?

Unlike Jing Jie, Liu Zhen is a lawyer, and she has never appeared in the public eye before. Leading Uber to fight Didi, let her show her head and feet. After entering ByteDance, she became a senior vice president, responsible for internationalization, and she was responsible for overseas market expansion when she arrived at Vitality Forest.

In the early days of Byte, she led two key acquisitions, but was later restricted and is said to be only responsible for domestic legal affairs. Liu Zhen has only been in Yuanqi Forest for a few months. According to Tencent's "Deep Web" analysis, her resignation may be related to the obstacles to Yuanqi Forest's overseas business development. Under the epidemic, Yuanqi Forest's overseas development is relatively difficult. The news released by Yuanqi Forest is that Liu Zhen's resignation is based on personal reasons.

Whatever the reason, the figure who once stirred up the Chinese Internet scene has gradually become marginalized.

Inli contacts

Yin Ming, who has two in and two outs at Ant, comes from the traditional financial industry.

Born in 1970, he was the general manager of the Shanghai branch of China Life Property and Casualty Insurance, and is said to be one of the younger and faster-moving executives in the China Life system at the time. Later, he served as the general manager, assistant to the president and vice president of China Life Property Insurance Company Shanghai Branch, and general manager of Taiping Insurance Co., Ltd. Jiangsu Branch.

In 2015, Internet finance entered a period of rapid development, and a large number of traditional financial executives entered Internet companies.

Before and after, Cao Tong, who served as the president of Tencent WeBank, once pointed out the reasons, "Traditional banks set up a sub-branch to be almost profitable in the first year. If the second year is not profitable, the sub-branch president has to resign. However, the investment and profit model of Internet finance are completely different." Cao Tong worked for the People's Bank of China, China Merchants Bank, and later as the vice president of China CITIC Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China. However, he left after less than a year at WeBank.

Yin Ming chose Ant to become the vice president of Ant Financial and the president of the insurance business group at that time. He experienced a "reborn" change at Ant.

Yin Ming, General Manager of Operation Center and Deputy General Manager of Command Center of Sunshine Insurance Group, former Vice President of Ant Group

"When I first came here, many people in the insurance industry, including me, habitually used the Internet as a sales channel. They felt that with such a traffic portal, they would have no worries about sales and premiums." Yin Ming once recalled in an internal email. Dao, after a period of time, they began to reflect on whether these products are needed by users. Compared with the total income of the insurance industry of 3 trillion yuan, their sales volume can be said to be negligible. So, he began to study the dilemma of buying and selling insurance, and at the same time thought about what should be done as an Internet technology company.

The book "Ant Financial: From Alipay to New Financial Ecosystem" mentioned that in the end Yin Ming decided that the Ant Financial insurance platform would only do one thing, that is, to concentrate on technology, and through technology, insurance companies and insurance companies will be mutually ecological. To put it simply, on the one hand, we use artificial intelligence and other technologies to provide insurance education for the industry; on the other hand, through data modeling and other technologies, we help insurance companies launch products and services that touch all aspects of life and provide convenient claims settlement experience.

"The emergence of technology is not about charging more premiums, but about improving the user experience." Yin Ming said.

In the Ant Insurance business group, Yin Ming is known as the "head of the group". Later, under his leadership, he successively developed products such as Dingshengbao, Mutual Bao, and auto insurance points, which had an impact on the industry.

In recent years, as the regulation of the fintech industry has tightened, those executives from traditional industries have begun to return.

Regarding Yin Ming leaving and returning to Ant for a short time, Caijing magazine once quoted a person close to Yin Ming as saying, "The reason for leaving has nothing to do with rumors such as acclimatization and qualifications, and Yin Ming's return to Ant is mainly to deal with unfinished matters before. ”

In the end, however, Yin Ming returned to the traditional financial industry.

In the second year of Yin Ming's entry into the Internet, Zhang Xuyang, who was born in China Everbright Bank, joined Baidu. "Maybe I was also limited in traditional financial institutions, but going to Baidu can trigger my new inspiration." Zhang Xuyang at that time sighed with emotion.

Similar to Cao Tong’s statement back then, Zhang Xuyang said, for example, that bank wealth management products usually have a fixed term of several months, but at Baidu, they are thinking about whether it is possible to define a term for customers through the calculation or data processing capabilities behind them. 38 Days, 56 days or 139 days, or products that expire on September 30 next year.

Zhang Xuyang was the vice president of Baidu at the beginning, responsible for the financial management and asset management of the financial business group. In April 2018, he began to serve as the vice president of Du Xiaoman Finance. But just over a year later, Zhang Xuyang returned to China Everbright Bank and became the chief business director of China Everbright Bank and chairman of China Everbright Wealth Management.

The hustle and bustle all come and go for profit.

Undercurrent and drifting

In June of this year, Jidu released its first car robot, and the first mass-produced car will be launched next year. Jidu is a car manufacturing company jointly created by Baidu and Geely. Almost at the same time, the media reported that Zhu Jiang, vice president of Jidu Automobile, left, two months ago.

Zhu Jiang is in charge of the user development and operation of Jidu, and will accelerate the promotion of Jidu's automotive robots to the market in the future, but he only has half a year in Jidu. According to Jiemian News, a person familiar with Zhu Jiang said that Zhu Jiang’s resignation was passive, but Jidu denied this statement, saying that it was a personal reason and would not comment.

The industry's evaluation of Zhu Jiang is, "He is a professional professional manager with rich experience in the automotive industry, and some start-up companies will favor such management talents."

Zhu Jiang has professional experience in several automobile companies.

He was in charge of the market at BMW Brilliance at the earliest. In the four or five years after 2008, he became the brand management director of BMW MINI, which is the first Chinese brand director of BMW in the world. Thanks to Zhu Jiang's efforts, MINI has changed from a niche product to a fashion brand with monthly sales of over 10,000. Due to its outstanding performance, Zhu Jiang was promoted to the vice president of MINI China Brand Management.

Later, Zhu Jiang briefly left the auto industry to join Amazon. In 2014, he joined Lexus as the deputy general manager of China, mainly responsible for branding and marketing. To a large extent, Lexus took a fancy to his experience leading MINI at BMW. More than two years later, Zhu Jiang helped Lexus sell more than 100,000 vehicles in China, which was actually the goal set by Lexus five years ago.

Zhu Jiang, former vice president of Jidu Automobile

With the emergence of new car-making forces, Zhu Jiang joined Weilai as the vice president of user development in 2017.

In June 2020, Zhu Jiang returned to a traditional car company, joined Ford China, and became the leader of the 727 team of Ford's pure electric project, responsible for the operation and management of related markets, public relations, sales, service and customer experience, and was later adjusted to Ford. Chief Operating Officer of China Electric Vehicle Division.

At present, the undercurrent of new and old car manufacturers is surging, and the practitioners are also following the trend. More than a year later, Zhu Jiang left again after a short stay in Jidu.

Similar to Zhu Jiang's experience is Xiang Dongping, who served as vice president of Jiangling Motors and general manager of Jiangling Ford more than a year ago. He once said that a true challenger regards himself as an opponent and is always ready for every new life.

In 2017, Xiang Dongping left the traditional car company that had been working for nearly 20 years, and joined the new car-making force, Tianji Auto, as a co-founder, director and CMO. Xiang Dongping worked for SAIC Volkswagen, Volvo, etc., and led the sales of the Volkswagen brand to increase from 600,000 in 2009 to nearly 1.5 million in 2014.

At Tianji Auto, Xiang Dongping is fully responsible for product planning, brand building, new retail, user operation and marketing network layout, laying the foundation for the launch of Tianji Auto's first luxury smart electric SUV. However, more than two years later, Xiang Dongping resigned to join Hyundai.

Xiang Dongping only stayed in Hyundai for a short time, and will enter Jiangling Motors in 2021. This time, his task is how to lead the new JMC and Ford joint venture company Jiangling Ford to break through the siege. As he said, "In the old joint venture era, you can win by integrating resources. a new model."

Some outside comments believe that when Xiang Dongping joined the new car-making forces, the industry was blessed and sought after by capital, with high valuations and high salaries. As they faced problems such as product delivery difficulties and shortage of funds, they returned to traditional car companies.

The feng shui turns, and for executives who cross back and forth between traditional industries and the Internet, the most critical thing is timing.