Just days after Xiaomi revealed its latest earnings report, the Chinese company has undergone a major leadership reshuffle. As a part of that, the company’s co-founder Lei Jun has stepped down from his role as the company’s Chinese president.
Xiaomi notified its employees of major leadership changes via an internal letter circulated earlier last week. From now onwards, Lei Jun’s responsibilities will be shouldered by Lu Weibing, the brand manager for Xiaomi’s budget-focused spin-off brand Redmi.
He will now be Xiaomi’s China President to oversee overall operations and reignite growth in the coming months. It’s noteworthy that while Lei Jun has stepped down as the company’s China President, he will continue to serve as chairman and CEO.
In the internal letter, Lin Jun states “Next year will be an offensive year for Xiaomi’s 5G business, and it will also be a key year for Xiaomi to promote mobile phone + AIoT. We need more powerful group management support. It is [now] necessary to continue the organizational innovation vitality brought by the cadre rotation mechanism”
Along with that, former president Lin Bin has also been promoted to the position of Xiaomi’s vice president and CFO Zhou Capital is now the head of international business. Xiaomi co-founder Li Wanqiang, who led Xiaomi’s marketing and brand strategy, resigned from the company and Senior Vice President Qi Yan too retired this year.
The development comes as Xiaomi’s market share in China has shrunk to 9% from 12% over the past six months, however, the company did witness a 5.5% year-on-year (YoY) growth.
