news

the latest female leader has arrived.

the investment community learned that this week,haitian flavor industrythe company announced that it had completed the board of directors' change, with cheng xue, the former vice chairman and executive president, promoted to chairman of the company. thus, this time-honored chinese brand that took root, grew and then rose in foshan has completed the succession and ushered in the first female head since its establishment.

cheng xue, 54 years old, is extremely low-key. she has appeared on the list of haitian flavor industry's management since the 1990s, following pang kang. now she is officially in charge of the 200 billion yuan haitian flavor industry. cheng xue has achieved a transformation from an employee to the head of the company and is known as the "queen of soy sauce".

this is an unprecedented scene. in the long-standing workplace rules, the higher the level, the lower the proportion of women. now, this stereotype is being broken, and women are gradually entering the center of power, and even becoming female leaders of large companies with hundreds of thousands of employees.

just now, the 200 billion soy sauce empire

announcing a female leader

who is cheng xue?

looking through public records, cheng xue rarely appears in public. from the limited information, we can roughly outline her inspirational career.

born in the 1970s, cheng xue joined haitian flavor industry in the 1990s. according to haitian flavor industry's listing announcement that year, cheng xue served as the company's corporate planning director, vice president, and director from 1997 to november 2010. when haitian flavor industry went public in 2014, cheng xue was already the company's vice chairman and executive vice president.

few people know that cheng xue was one of the more than 700 employees who participated in the subscription when haitian flavor industry launched its share reform in 1995. by the time haitian flavor industry went public, her direct shareholding had increased to 25.11 million shares, and she also held shares indirectly through haitian group, with a shareholding ratio second only to pang kang, and she and pang kang and others were co-controllers of the company.

at the end of 2022, cheng xue was appointed as the executive president of haitian flavor industry. this job change is also considered a signal of "handover between the old and the new."

cheng xue can be called the "best worker". according to haitian flavor industry's 2023 annual report, cheng xue received an annual salary of 6.6983 million yuan before tax that year, making her the highest-paid director, supervisor and senior executive of haitian flavor industry. according to the 2024 forbes global billionaires list, cheng xue's wealth is about us$2.8 billion (about rmb 20 billion).

in the past two years, cheng xue has gradually stepped into the spotlight. not only did she rarely appear at the shareholders' meeting of haitian flavor industry, she also appeared in suqian news in february this year. according to suqian news, on february 27 this year, chen zhongwei, secretary of the suqian municipal party committee, met with cheng xue and his party from haitian flavoring & food co., ltd. the two sides had in-depth exchanges on further deepening project cooperation and achieving win-win development. in the report, cheng xue rarely appeared and looked capable.

cheng xue said that she will further increase the layout and investment intensity of projects in suqian, accelerate the construction of the 5 billion-level project haitian biotechnology, strive to complete it as soon as possible and put it into production, create more benefits and contribute greater strength to suqian's green food industry.

on september 19 this year, haitian flavor industry held the first meeting of the sixth board of directors and announced the election of the company's new chairman, ms. cheng xue. the board of directors includes six non-independent directors, including cheng xue, guan jianghua, huang wenbiao, and three independent directors. the term of office of the board of directors and the board of supervisors is three years.

at this point, haitian flavor industry, with a market value of nearly 200 billion yuan, welcomed its first female leader in history.

a bottle of soy sauce creates a market value of 200 billion

foshan boss retires

cheng xue took over a huge soy sauce empire.

haitian flavor industry has a long history. since the middle of the qing dynasty, there have been sauce factories in foshan, one of the four famous towns in china, which sell a wide variety of products, including salty, sweet, sour and spicy. haitian is traced back to the "foshan ancient sauce factory" and is named after the "haitian (ancient) sauce factory".

in 1955, 25 ancient soy sauce factories in foshan, which were famous in hong kong and macao for their outstanding strength and delicious taste, planned to merge and reorganize to form the "haitian soy sauce factory", which is the predecessor of the current haitian.

as the outside world knows, over the past 60 years, haitian flavor industry has gradually grown from small to large, from decentralized to centralized, from regional to national, and from a traditional family handicraft workshop to a fully digitalized and automated modern enterprise. it has entered thousands of households and has become a household name national brand.

the key figure behind this is pang kang.

born in 1956, pang kang is a native of foshan, guangdong. in 1982, 26-year-old pang kang graduated from university and was assigned to haitian soy sauce factory as a technician. a few years later, pang kang was elected as the deputy director. under his leadership, haitian grew from a small local factory to a well-known large factory officially recognized as a "national second-level enterprise".

along with the restructuring of the soy sauce factory, pang kang was promoted all the way until he became the chairman and general manager. in 1994, haitian reorganized the original single state-owned economy into a limited liability company (foshan haitian condiment food company) funded by individual employees and the state, and the name "haitian" has been used to this day.

afterwards, pang kang led haitian to continue to make efforts. first, he invested 30 million yuan to introduce advanced production lines from abroad. in 2003, he introduced the first fully automatic packaging production line in china from germany. in 2005, he invested another 1 billion yuan to build the haitian gaoming production base with an annual output of over 1 million tons. with these arrangements, haitian quickly grew into a well-known domestic soy sauce production, sales and export company. in 2009, its sales revenue exceeded 5 billion yuan, and in 2013, its sales value exceeded 10 billion yuan.

in 2014, haitian flavor industry entered the a-share market and created a myth of market value, which once broke through 700 billion yuan, and once jumped to the top of the a-share market value list, and was dubbed the "mao of soy sauce". however, with the changes in the market, the latest market value of haitian flavor industry has fallen to nearly 200 billion yuan.

in 2023, haitian flavor industry's revenue was 24.559 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 4.1%. this is the first time in the past decade that haitian flavor industry has seen a decline in revenue. profitability also declined accordingly. after the company's net profit fell by 7% in 2022, it continued to fall by 9% in 2023, with a net profit attributable to the parent company of 5.627 billion yuan.

having experienced the golden years of haitian flavor industry, pang kang, who has been in office for more than 40 years, is now approaching his 70s. this time, he has decided to retire and hand over haitian flavor industry to cheng xue, the "number two person". with the transfer of power, haitian flavor industry has opened a new chapter.

new business arena

the era of chinese female bosses has arrived

looking around, there are a number of female business leaders active in china.dong mingzhu, wang laichun,meng wanzhou、zong fuliwait, there are some new faces.

what impressed me most washaidilaoyang lijuan. in march 2022, zhang yong announced his resignation as ceo of haidilao and gave way to yang lijuan, which truly interprets the inspirational story of hard work changing destiny. in 1978, yang lijuan was born in an ordinary family in jianyang, sichuan. before graduating from junior high school, she went to the county town to work as a waitress. in 1994, zhang yong, who had just opened the first hot pot restaurant in jianyang, poached the diligent and thoughtful yang lijuan, thus opening the prelude to her life counterattack.

yang lijuan joined haidilao when she was less than 18 years old. she was one of the earliest employees of haidilao. she witnessed every key node of haidilao's rise along the way. she was also a key figure in haidilao's expansion out of sichuan and into the national market. now that haidilao is going global, she is taking the lead again. in june this year, yang lijuan resigned as executive director and ceo of haidilao and was appointedtehai internationalexecutive director and chief executive officer, responsible for coordinating the management and strategic development of tehai international.

tehai international is the overseas business of haidilao. it was spun off from haidilao in 2022 and is headquartered in singapore. it currently has footprints in 12 countries in asia, north america, europe and oceania, and has opened more than 100 restaurants. now, tehai international has successfully dual-listed on nasdaq and listed on the hong kong stock exchange by introduction, with a market value of nearly hk$8 billion in hong kong stocks. 46-year-old yang lijuan took over the task of going overseas.

the new female ceo of watsons has just made her debut. watsons group, headed by li ka-shing, announced this year that malina ngai, the current chief operating officer of watsons group and ceo of watsons (asia and europe), will become the new ceo. born in hong kong, china, malina ngai joined watsons in 2001 and played an important role in the company's transformation and reform. now, the baton of this giant ship has finally been handed over to her. in a previous interview, malina ngai summed up her career experience in one sentence: be prepared, make greater efforts, and continue to work hard in the field where you can make a difference.

besidesyum chinaceo teresa wat. born in fujian and raised in hong kong, teresa wat graduated from the university of hong kong and later obtained an mba from the kellogg school of management at northwestern university. teresa wat has an elite background. in 2014, she officially joined the yum china division as president of kfc china. the following year, she was promoted to ceo of kfc china. after 2017, she assumed the position of president and coo of yum china. under her leadership, yum china has created a market value of over hk$100 billion, and its total revenue reached a record high of us$11 billion in 2023.

a number of female executives have also emerged in china's internet giantsjd.comthe first female ceo in history, xu ran, xiaohongshu founder qu fang, b station vice chairman and coo li ni, andalibabadai shan, one of the eighteen arhats, and zhang nan of bytedance.

more and more women are entering the core management of companies. in the male-dominated business world, they have achieved transformation beyond ordinary people time and time again. some have even become ceos and started to lead large organizations of hundreds of thousands of people. they are idols of countless young people.

forbes once compiled a data that among this year's "forbes china's 100 outstanding women in business", the average age is 51 years old, 44% are self-made entrepreneurs (including those who joined the founding team early), 44% are professional managers, and 12% are second-generation female successors.

"there are no particularly big differences between women and men in the workplace."luxshare precisionfounder and chairman wang laichun said in an interview that she described herself as androgynous, "having a strong side, but also playing the role of mother and sister when the company is growing rapidly and the team is under extraordinary pressure, accompanying them through difficult times."

self-reliance leads to greatness. chinese female leaders have appeared one after another.