Source: No. 19 Chamber of Commerce and Research
The underlying logic of the industry has changed
In 2021, the Internet industry is in turmoil. Under the hammer of a series of policies, the underlying logic of the industry has changed, and Internet companies represented by Ali, Tencent, ByteDance, Pinduoduo, etc. are no longer racing and refocusing their attention on technological innovation.
As a result, various structural adjustments and personnel changes are carried out in Internet enterprises. In 2021, Ali upgraded its organizational strategy; ByteDance and Pinduoduo experienced the founders' baton; Kuaishou ended the "dual-core era"; Tencent appointed the head of the first cross-business group...
The adjustment of key personnel structure often has a crucial impact on the development of enterprises, the Times Weekly reporter combed the management changes in the technology industry in the past year, took stock of and summarized the changes in 10 senior executives of 5 Internet head companies, and their changes will have a huge impact on their companies and even the entire Internet industry.
Image source: Visual China
Ali:
Dai Shan and Yu Yongfu expanded their powers
In the last month of 2021, Alibaba's chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang announced new personnel appointments, changing Ali to a new structure of "1 +4", and Expanding Dai Shan's powers and responsibilities.
Dai Shan, who studied under Ma Yun, is currently the only "Eighteen Arhats" in Ali who is still in the first-line business. Today, Dai Shan is responsible for Alibaba China's digital business sector, in charge of Taobao (including Taobao, Tmall, Alimama), B2C retail business group, Taocaicai, Taote and 1688 businesses. This is the most core part of Ali.
At the beginning of the new year, Dai Shan lit the "first fire" of her new official. Recently, Dai Shan issued an internal letter, announcing that on the basis of adhering to the dual brand operation of Taobao and Tmall, the industrial operation and development center, the platform strategy center, and the user operation and development center will be newly established, which will fully integrate Taobao Tmall, fully focus on user experience and customer value, eliminate inertial thinking, and encourage mechanism innovation.
As the helmsman of Alibaba's commercial giant ship, Dai Shan will lead Taobao to compete with platforms such as Pinduoduo, Kuaishou and Douyin in the e-commerce track.
In the past year, Ali's personnel adjustment has expanded its powers and responsibilities, and Yu Yongfu.
Yu joined UC in 2006 as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. In 2014, UC merged into Alibaba, where he became president of Alibaba Mobile Business Group, and later served as president of AutoNavi Group, chairman and CEO of Alibaba Entertainment Group.
In July 2021, Yu Yongfu was appointed as the president of the life service sector. In August, he served as CEO of both a local life company and a president of the same-city retail business group.
More than two months later, Yu Yongfu sorted out and adjusted the organizational structure of local life and announced the implementation of the "541 formation", which consists of five consumer-facing (to C) businesses, four merchant-oriented (to B) businesses and delivery businesses. At the same time, he also proposed to establish an "L-shaped organization" in local life, that is, the business and marketing, finance, legal affairs and other business departments cooperate and develop together.
Tencent:
Yao Xiaoguang sits on QQ, and Liang Zhu conducts music
In April 2021, Tencent's platform and content business group (PCG) changed, and Yao Xiaoguang, vice president of Tencent and president of Tianmei Studio Group, concurrently served as the head of QQ business.
The appointment of a person in charge across business groups is the first time in Tencent's history.
Yao Xiaoguang, who joined Tencent in 2006, is one of the "Top Ten Leaders" in China's online game industry, and its leading Tianmei Studio has launched a number of explosive game products such as "Glory of the King", "QQ Flying Car", "Crossfire: Gun Battle King" and so on.
In recent years, the number of QQ users has declined, and it is urgent to find a new direction of development. Although Yao Xiaoguang has no experience in managing social products since joining Tencent, QQ is still in his hands. Liang Zhu, the former head of QQ, became the CEO of Tencent Music Entertainment Group (TME.NYSE).
Liang Zhu, who joined Tencent in 2003, is a veteran of the company. In 2014, Liang Zhu served as the general manager of the social platform department of the social network business group (SNG) and the general manager of the digital music department, responsible for a number of products, and led and successfully incubated the national K song business. In 2018, he was transferred from SNG to PCG, where he was in charge of QQ and social tracks. In August 2021, Tencent announced that it was abandoning the exclusive music rights. Liang Zhu, who has rich experience in both QQ Music and Tencent PCG, is a suitable candidate to control the music business.
On January 11, 2022, Tencent Music Entertainment Group announced that Vice President Dennis Hau resigned from the group, Liang Zhu took over the international business, and tencent music's steering wheel was in the hands of Liang Zhu.
ByteDance:
The old classmate took over the baton, and Liang Rubo succeeded Zhang Yiming
In 2021, ByteDance moves frequently.
In May, the company's founder Zhang Yiming announced that he would step down as global CEO and be replaced by co-founder Liang Rubo.
Zhang Yiming, founder of ByteDance Image source: Visual China
In November, ByteDance announced that its organizational structure was adjusted to six major business sectors: Douyin, Vigorous Education, Feishu, Volcano Engine, Asahi Lightyear and TikTok, and toutiao, Watermelon, Search, Encyclopedia and domestic vertical service businesses were merged into Douyin.
In December, Volcano Engine released a full range of cloud products to enter the public cloud market.
Liang Rubo, the "superior" is an old classmate of Zhang Yiming, and the two of them founded the vertical real estate search engine "Jiujiufang" together in 2009 and founded ByteDance together in 2012. During his time at ByteDance, Liang Rubo served as the head of product research and development, responsible for today's headlines, Feishu, etc., he was also the founder of Douyin, and previously served as the head of human resources and management of the group.
Knowing both technology and products and management, when the company entered the adjustment period after rapid development, Zhang Yiming handed over the power to his old classmates, which showed his affirmation of Liang Rubo's ability.
At the age of 38, he chose to step down, and Zhang Yiming's "retirement" age was too young. In an internal letter, he said he hopes to "be able to focus relatively on learning knowledge, thinking systematically, researching new things, hands-on experimentation and experience, for a ten-year period, to create more possibilities for the company." At the same time, the company has made some progress in social responsibility and public welfare, among which new projects such as education public welfare, brain diseases, and digital collation of ancient books are also continuing to be explored, and I personally have some input, I have more ideas, and I hope to be more deeply involved. ”
Although he stepped down as CEO, Tianyancha information shows that Zhang Yiming is still the legal representative of Five enterprises, including Beijing ByteDance Network Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing Word Jump Network Technology Co., Ltd., and Grapefruit Network Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., and serves as general manager or executive director.
quick worker:
The "dual-core era" ended, and Cheng Yixiao succeeded Su Hua
In order to meet industry challenges, enhance organizational flexibility, and improve the speed of business iteration, in 2021, Kuaishou made organizational structure adjustments. Kuaishou co-founder Su Hua stepped down as CEO to become executive director and chairman, Cheng Yixiao took over as CEO, and the company's "dual core" model that the company insisted on for many years ended.
Su Hua served as CEO of Kuaishou for 8 years. Before joining Kuaishou, he worked for Google and Baidu, and Kuaishou was the result of his third venture.
In February 2021, Su Hua led Kuaishou to ring the bell on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and Kuaishou became the first short video stock in China. More than 8 months later, Su Hua stepped down as CEO of Kuaishou and still serves as chairman, executive director and member of the remuneration committee.
Some people say that Cheng Yixiao, who took over suhua, seems to be more like the founder of Kuaishou.
After graduating from college, Cheng Yixiao worked at HP and Renren. He founded the predecessor of Kuaishou "GIF Kuaishou", and then met Suhua under the introduction of investor Zhang Fei, and the two hit it off, Suhua joined, and the company formed a dual core management model. After the product transformation, Cheng Yixiao served as the chief product officer, accompanied the growth of Kuaishou behind the scenes, and finally came to the front of the stage this time.
Although the short video industry still has a huge market, after experiencing explosive growth, the growth rate of the industry has slowed down. Cheng Yixiao, who came to the front of the stage, must lead Kuaishou to find the right pace of development to cope with the changing market environment in the future.
Pinduoduo:
Huang Zheng retired to do scientific research, and Chen Lei took office to engage in agriculture
In the first three quarters of 2021, Pinduoduo's sales expenses continued to decline. Bidding farewell to the past, perhaps starting from Huang Zheng's retirement and Chen Lei's appointment.
Huang Zheng, a "post-80s" who retired from the rapids at the peak of his career, resigned as chairman and said he wanted to follow his interests in food science and life sciences.
Huang Zheng, founder of Pinduoduo, Source: Visual China
Huang Zheng, who studied at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a bachelor's degree and a master's degree, joined Google after graduation. Before founding Pinduoduo, he also founded companies such as Leqi, an e-commerce agency, and Ouku. It took him only 3 years to go public from the line of Pinduoduo to the listing. By the end of 2020, the number of active buyers in Pinduo for many years reached 788.4 million.
In July 2020, Huang Zheng announced that he would step down as CEO and be replaced by co-founder and former CTO Chen Lei, and give up part of his own equity, reducing the holding ratio from 43.3% to 29.4%. In March 2021, he announced that he would step down as chairman of the company, and chen Lei would also succeed him.
"New boss" Chen Lei was previously behind the scenes, less known by the outside world, according to media reports, he obtained a doctorate in computer science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he joined Yahoo, IBM, and joined Ouku as a research and development architecture engineer after returning to China, in 2010, Xinyoudi Company (the predecessor of Pinduoduo's main Shanghai Dream Game) was established, Chen Lei served as a senior R & D architecture engineer, CTO, this position also continued to the later Pinduoduo.
As the CTO, Chen Lei led the development of Pinduoduo's distributed artificial intelligence system. Since taking over the baton, he has increased the investment in research and development of Pinduoduo. According to the financial report, in the third quarter of 2021, Pinduoduo's research and development expenses were 2.4224 billion yuan, a new high since its listing. At the same time, Chen Lei attaches great importance to the development of agricultural projects, and he personally leads the "10 billion agricultural research" project to promote the progress of agricultural science and technology. Compared with the previous way of "burning money to expand", Pinduoduo has embarked on a more stable development path.