Lei Jun promoted two female executives in a high-profile manner

Author | Zhou Zhiyu

After Xiaomi's SU7 stirred up the Chinese new energy vehicle market, Lei Jun is actively making personnel adjustments.

Xiaomi founder Lei Jun announced on the evening of May 8th through Weibo that Xu Fei and Zhang Jianhui have been promoted to senior executives. Lei Jun stated, "They are both classmates who joined Xiaomi at the beginning of its entrepreneurship. Over the past decade, they have grown together with Xiaomi and made significant contributions in various positions."

A personnel appointment document obtained by Wall Street News shows that Xu Fei will serve as the Group's Vice President and Group CMO, while Zhang Jianhui will serve as the Group's Vice President and Chairman of the Group's Procurement Committee. Zhang will also continue to serve as the General Manager of the Group's Assets and Engineering Management Department. Both of these new executives will report to Lei Jun.

This is the first time Xiaomi has appointed two female executives simultaneously. In January of this year, Xiaomi Group appointed Cai Jinqing, CEO of Open Cloud Group Greater China, as a new independent director of the Group, marking the first time Xiaomi had a female member on its board. This demonstrates Xiaomi's increasing maturity in corporate governance framework and continuous improvement in its ESG management system.

As long-time employees who joined Xiaomi at the beginning of its entrepreneurship, Xu Fei and Zhang Jianhui will play a greater role in the specific operations of Xiaomi Group in the future. As Lei Jun focuses on entering the automotive industry, he needs more capable assistants to help drive Xiaomi Group further.

According to the aforementioned personnel appointment document, Xiaomi Group has established the Group's Strategic Marketing Department to oversee all brand, public relations, and marketing-related work of the Group. It consists of three departments: Group Brand Department, Group Public Relations Department, and Group Strategic Marketing Operations Room. Xu Fei will also serve as the General Manager of the Group's Strategic Marketing Department.

Additionally, Xu Fei will continue to serve as the General Manager of the China Market Department, reporting to Wang Xiaoyan, President of the China Region. Furthermore, the heads of the China Market Department, International Business Department, International Market Department, and Automotive Department will report to Xu Fei while also reporting to the original business line leaders.

As Xiaomi's 46th employee, Xu Fei has always been approachable. Many Xiaomi employees and Mi Fans affectionately call her "Aunt Xu". Xu Fei also records some short videos to show her gentle, capable, and professional image as a female professional in the workplace, receiving praise from netizens.

At this year's Xiaomi 14 Ultra launch event, Xu Fei served as the keynote speaker and explained the new product releases alongside Xiaomi Group President Lu Weibing.

The promotion of Xu Fei and Zhang Jianhui as female executives is to allow Lei Jun to focus more on the automotive industry, while needing capable assistants to help stabilize the foundation of Xiaomi's mobile phones, IoT, and other businesses. Lei Jun has stated that while he is investing half of his energy in the automotive business, he is also constantly paying attention to the mobile phone business. Because the mobile phone business is the cornerstone of Xiaomi's survival, with Xiaomi's current scale, there can be no mistakes in the mobile phone sector.

From the current performance, Xiaomi's core businesses such as mobile phones have been performing well alongside its entry into the automotive industry. Institutions like UBS have recently shown optimism towards Xiaomi, expecting the company to maintain good growth in the first quarter. UBS predicts that Xiaomi's first-quarter revenue will increase by 25% year-on-year to 74.4 billion RMB; non-IFRS net profit will rise by 51% to 4.9 billion RMBIn addition, in terms of automobiles, as of 24:00 on April 30th, Xiaomi's SU7 had delivered 7,058 units in April, with a cumulative order volume reaching 88,063 units. Lei Jun stated that Xiaomi is fully expanding production capacity, accelerating delivery, and ensuring the completion of the task to deliver 100,000 units this year