ZTE celebrates temporary reprieve by replacing President and senior management team

The cleaning of the ZTE Augean stables continues apace with the replacement of its President, CFO and EVPs.

Having been appointed at the start of this week, ZTE’s eight-person board wasted little time in getting rid of President Zhao Xianming, CFO Shao Weilin and Executive VPs Xu Huijun, Zhang Zhenhui, Pang Shengqing, and Xiong Hui. They were immediately replaced by Xu Ziyang, Li Ying, Wang Xiyu, and Gu Junying.

Here’s the statement offered up by the independent non-exec directors: “The senior management appointed hereby meet the qualifications for appointment as senior management of listed companies stipulated under pertinent laws and regulations, including the Company Law and the Articles of Association.

“The procedure for the appointment and removal of senior management has been in compliance with relevant provisions of the Company Law and the Articles of Association and the interests of the Company and other shareholders have not been compromised. We concur with the decision on the appointment and removal of senior management of the Company.”

New President Xu Ziyang has been with ZTE since 1998. Until 2011 he was involved in R&D and product management on the core network side of things. He then got some GM roles in the US and Germany. Since 2016, Xu has been both assistant to the President and Product General Manager of the CCN core network product line.

New CFO Li Ying joined ZTE in 2002 and has had a variety of finance-related roles, culminating in taking on the role of Acting Head of the Finance Management department since the start of this year. New EVP (and possibly CTO) Wang Xiyu has been at ZTE since 1998 and has been deputy CTO since 2016. Gu Junying is a new hire that seems to have been brought in to head up the HR side of things.

So ZTE has now completely replaced its board and senior leadership. Along with all the other things like fines and remedial measures it’s hard to imagine what else it could do to appease US regulators and politicians short of personally shining their shoes. The scene seems to be set for a full reprieve and it’s reasonable to expect an update from the US in the next month.