Modern China coaching: Li Hequan as president of China focuses on promoting hydrogen fuel cells

South Korea's modern official announcement "change of coach".

A few days ago, a reporter from China Business Daily learned from Hyundai Motor Group (hereinafter referred to as "Hyundai Group") that Li Heyuan, vice president of Hyundai Motor Group China, will take over As Li Guangguo from January 1, 2022, as the president of Hyundai Motor Group (China), and is fully responsible for the operation and management of Hyundai Motor Group (China) Investment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Hyundai China").

It is reported that Li Heyuan has been serving Hyundai Motor Group's business in China since 2001, and has rich experience in government communication, corporate strategic planning, product technology "new four modernization" layout, joint venture enterprise development management, hydrogen fuel cell layout development, localization management and other fields.

According to public information, Li Heyuan graduated from the School of Economics and Management of Jilin University, and successively obtained an EMBA from Peking University and a doctorate degree from the Business School of Chinese Min University. Since 2001, Lee has served as the representative of hyundai motor company in Beijing, the director of the management support office of Hyundai Motor Co., Ltd., the executive deputy general manager of Hyundai Motor (China) Investment Co., Ltd., the vice president, chief government affairs officer, chief strategy officer of Hyundai Motor Group in China, and the chairman of Hyundai Motor Hydrogen Fuel Cell Systems (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd.

It is worth mentioning that the official announcement mentioned that Li Hequan will continue to focus on promoting the field of hydrogen fuel cells while taking full responsibility for China's business.

The reporter paid attention to the "HydrogenWave" held by Hyundai Group this year, and China was designated as the focus of Hyundai's hydrogen strategy.

In fact, since 2020, Hyundai Group has continued to add bets on china's hydrogen fuel cell market. In February this year, Hyundai Group invested 2.23 billion yuan to build the second phase of the Hyundai Commercial Vehicle Project in Ziyang, Sichuan Province. It is reported that the project will focus on strengthening the research and development and production of new energy vehicle products, including hydrogen fuel vehicles.

In March, Hyundai Group established the Group's first overseas hydrogen fuel cell production base in Guangzhou, named "HTWO Guangzhou", which is also the first large-scale hydrogen fuel cell system production plant in China.

Returning to the executive changes, in recent years, Hyundai China and its joint ventures in China have frequently "changed coaches", which is related to the decline in sales in the Chinese market. Although in the past year, Hyundai Group has introduced a number of new models (including new energy vehicles) in Beijing Hyundai and Dongfeng Yueda Kia, the market improvement is not obvious.

"The frequent changes in coaching in modern China are mainly related to the decline in sales in recent years. Considering the restrictions on the joint venture share ratio in the past, Hyundai China cannot fully promote its business in accordance with the group's strategy, and at the node where the share ratio will be liberalized, I think Hyundai Group wants to make an adjustment and change. Auto analyst Zhang Xiang said.

In addition to the "change of coach", the reporter paid attention to the fact that Hyundai Group has also adjusted the management structure of the Chinese market. In July this year, Hyundai Motor Group made a decision to transfer the local Chinese subsidiaries Beijing Hyundai and Dongfeng Yueda Kia to hyundai motor and Kia representative directors respectively. This initiative means that Beijing Hyundai and Dongfeng Yueda Kia will be directly managed by hyundai Group headquarters.

In this regard, a relevant person from Hyundai Motor Group said, "We look forward to achieving more systematic and consistent business management through the organizational restructuring in China." ”

There is a lot of debate in the industry about the approach of Hyundai Group. Some people say that under the background of the continuous promotion of "localization" in The German and Japanese systems, Hyundai Motor has "reversed" in China.

However, some Executives of Beijing Hyundai Korean party expressed their approval of this adjustment, Beijing Hyundai should change, but should be placed in the modern global strategy, "after the institutional reform, Beijing Hyundai in terms of quality, technology and customer management, with a global unified strategy to promote."

Looking back at the performance of Hyundai Group in the Chinese market in the past three years, from the technical offensive (releasing the technology brand SMART+ strategy), to the product offensive, to the frequent personnel adjustments, it can be described as frequent actions. Whether the organizational structure adjustment and the appointment of new executives can change the passive situation in China still needs time and market verification.