Introduction

Previously, Changan was upgraded and FAW and GAC swapped shares — so what about Dongfeng?

"Prelude to commercial vehicle integration," "Possible new moves in central SOE restructuring," "Are they going to merge?"

On November 2, Dongfeng Motor announced that Wu Bilei has been appointed Director and Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of Dongfeng Motor Corporation, and Lu Fang has been appointed Vice General Manager and Member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee of Dongfeng Motor Corporation.

Records show that Wu Bilei has long been engaged in R&D and management in the automotive industry, having previously served as a Member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee and Vice General Manager of China FAW Group, where he led the development of commercial vehicle projects such as the Jiefang J6 and J7.

Lu Fang led the founding and development of the Voyah brand and previously served as Chairman and Party Secretary of Voyah Automobile Technology Co., Ltd. He was also transferred from China FAW to Dongfeng Motor in 2018.

Judging from the résumés of these two executives, and given the recent successful integration of FAW and GAC, it is easy for outsiders to naturally associate this with the question of whether FAW and Dongfeng will undergo a central SOE automotive integration next.

Following this logic, if some form of strategic coordination arrangement emerges between Dongfeng and FAW in the future, this personnel composition would reduce communication costs. But if neither side takes further action, it may simply remain at the normal level of executive transfers.

In reality, executive interchange between Dongfeng and FAW — or rather, executive changes at Dongfeng in recent years — has actually been very frequent.

01 Ironclad Dongfeng, Flowing Executives

According to incomplete statistics, Dongfeng Motor has experienced more than ten executive personnel changes in the past four years.

For example, Huang Yong was transferred from FAW Toyota to Dongfeng Motor as Vice General Manager and Member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee, and later transferred to Aviation Industry Corporation of China as Director and Deputy Secretary of the Party Group; Zhou Zhiping was transferred from FAW Group to Dongfeng Motor as General Manager and Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee, and later transferred to China South Industries Group as General Manager and Deputy Secretary of the Party Group.

Chen Bin was transferred from Dongfeng Peugeot Citroen to China FAW as Member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee and Vice General Manager; Zhang Xiaofan was transferred from Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle to China FAW as Member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee and Vice General Manager; Wang Jun was transferred from President of Changan Automobile to Vice General Manager of China Ordnance Industry Group, and later to Dongfeng Motor as Vice General Manager and Member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee.

Among them, the position changes of Zhou Zhiping and Wang Jun corresponded exactly to the stage of Dongfeng-Changan integration. Outside interpretation was that people familiar with both systems were placed in key decision-making positions, and even transitional concurrent roles regarding who would manage what after integration were arranged. But even so, the Dongfeng-Changan integration did not succeed.

Now looking back at the current leadership team of Dongfeng Motor, after this round of personnel adjustments is completed, the Dongfeng Motor Group leadership team has reached 9 members.

In fact, the composition of this round of leadership came after the termination of the Dongfeng-Changan restructuring. From the timeline: Zhang Zutong was transferred to China First Heavy Industries, Zhang Xiaofan went north to FAW, Huang Yong was transferred to AVIC, Liu Yanhong was transferred to Guangxi, Zhou Feng was promoted to Vice General Manager, Feng Changjun was promoted to General Manager, and then Wu Bilei and Lu Fang filled the positions on the same day.

In particular, the General Manager position was vacant for eight months after Zhou Zhiping's transfer, until Feng Changjun was promoted from Chief Accountant to fill it. Then after Deputy Party Secretary Liu Yanhong was transferred away, Wu Bilei filled the position; the Vice General Manager vacancy after Huang Yong's departure was filled by Lu Fang. Thus, Dongfeng Motor reconfigured a team capable of operating independently.

However, a person familiar with Dongfeng Motor said this about the series of personnel adjustments: Dongfeng Motor is a big melting pot — people from Changan come, people from FAW come...

This remark seems to praise Dongfeng Motor for gathering talent from all directions, but behind it actually hides an important message: executives cultivated by Dongfeng Motor itself continue to be transferred out, and as a result, key positions can only be filled by external transfers. Ultimately, people come and go, and no closed talent pipeline has been formed.

Of course, from an individual perspective, being able to take up and be promoted to higher positions is a symbol of ability. But for Dongfeng Motor, frequent executive changes will directly lead to a lack of continuity in strategy execution.

But on the other hand, as a vice-ministerial-level central SOE, Dongfeng Motor is itself a node in the exchange of central SOE cadres, and talent circulation is the result of organizational deployment. Even more broadly, high-frequency cross-system executive mobility is continuously injecting management experience from different systems into Dongfeng Motor.

Moreover, people like Zhou Feng are cadres cultivated by Dongfeng Motor itself. Feng Changjun, Lu Fang, and You Zheng also prove that even if they are not longtime Dongfeng people, they can still make contributions to Dongfeng Motor in their positions.

02 A Complete Leadership Team Faces New Challenges

It is not hard to see that after China Changan Automobile was officially established as a first-tier central SOE, the Dongfeng-Changan integration was terminated, and FAW and GAC swapped shares, Dongfeng Motor should also make some moves. And the presentation of this 9-person leadership team is Dongfeng Motor's answer.

For example, Wu Bilei, as chief engineer of the Jiefang J6, has a résumé entirely rooted in commercial vehicle R&D and operations. His joining corresponds to Dongfeng's profit foundation that it absolutely cannot afford to lose, and may also lift Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle's technological advantage to a new height.

Commercial vehicles are Dongfeng's base that has lasted for decades, and are also one of the few segments in the current industry that can maintain stable profitability. Letting the person who best understands commercial vehicle R&D and operations enter the decision-making level reflects a logic of defending the core.

Lu Fang led Voyah from 0 to 1 in entrepreneurship and pushed it to list in Hong Kong by introduction, representing Dongfeng's entrepreneurial capability in the independent new energy track. His entry into the group's decision-making level means that the independent new energy route represented by Voyah has been formally confirmed in the group's strategy.

Although Dongfeng Motor's new energy sales reached 1.053 million vehicles in 2025, making it the fifth automotive group in the industry to exceed one million annual new energy sales, it still faces profit pressure and the ambitious target of 3.5 million new energy vehicles by 2030. So it can be seen that Dongfeng hopes to replicate Voyah's experience at the group level.

In addition, Feng Changjun previously took office and became the youngest general manager among the three major automotive central SOEs. With core capabilities in finance and capital operations, he is called internally a master of resource integration, and undertakes the tasks of financial hemostasis, resource integration, and capital empowerment during Dongfeng's critical transformation period.

Combined with the joint venture system backgrounds of You Zheng and Zhou Feng and Wang Jun's Changan background, from capital, commercial vehicles, new energy, joint ventures, to cross-system coordination, the all-dimensional capability of this team is beginning to take shape. Once the leadership members stabilize, they can also help Dongfeng Motor, this veteran automotive central SOE, regain a stable rhythm.

As an extra-large central SOE, Dongfeng Motor must shoulder national and social responsibilities while maintaining market share and profitability under market competition. Therefore, outsiders always criticize Dongfeng's slow transformation using only a single yardstick, but in more cases, Dongfeng's transformation is not that it does not want to be fast, but that its structure determines that it must repeatedly weigh many aspects.

A formed executive team is not easy for Dongfeng, and it is also the best opportunity for Dongfeng to seize. After all, the current domestic new energy vehicle market landscape has not yet fully solidified, and the incremental space in overseas expansion and commercial vehicles is still being rapidly released. Facing such a window, a relatively complete team is exactly needed to take it on.

Therefore, regardless of whether central SOE integration between Dongfeng and FAW will occur, for Dongfeng and for this leadership team, the test has officially begun.

Editor-in-Charge: Cao Jiadong Editor: He Zengrong

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