Change of coach in Xiaomi Finance: Hong Feng, co-founder of Xiaomi, stepped down as chairman and founded Xiaomi Finance and MIUI
Sina Science and Technology News on the afternoon of September 9, Sina Technology learned exclusively that Xiaomi announced in an internal email a few days ago that Lin Shiwei, vice president of the group and CFO, was also chairman of Tianxing Digital Division, reporting to CEO Lei Jun of the group.
It is worth noting that Hong Feng, co-founder and senior vice president of Xiaomi, was previously chairman of Tianxing Digital, and the appointment also means that Hong Feng is no longer in charge of the financial business he started.
One of the eight co-founders, MIUI and Xiaomi Financial founder Hong Feng, is one of Xiaomi's eight co-founders. Before joining Xiaomi, he served as senior software engineer for Google and senior product manager for Google China. He was in charge of Google Calendar, Google Maps 3D Street View project, Google Chinese music service and so on.
When Xiaomi was founded in 2010, Lei Jun urgently needed to recruit all kinds of talents. Xiaomi co-founders Lin Bin and Hong Feng were former Google colleagues. Lei Jun successfully recruited Hong Feng under the introduction of Lin Bin.
As a result of his experience in product development at Google, Hong Feng was mainly in charge of MIUI business in his early days, which was internally known as Master Hong, and MIUI became one of Xiaomi's troika.
Relying on the success of MIUI, Xiaomi is also unique among a number of domestic mobile phone manufacturers and has become one of the core competitiveness of Xiaomi mobile phones.
Since 2015, Hong Feng began to build Xiaomi's financial business. Due to relying on MIUI users, Xiaomi Finance developed rapidly in a short period of time.
Over the past few years, Xiaomi has successively won a number of financial licenses, such as Internet small loans, third-party payments, private banks, consumer finance, virtual banks, insurance brokers, financing guarantees, commercial factoring and so on.
In 2018, Xiaomi disclosed in its prospectus that it would integrate its financial business to form Xiaomi Financial Group; in 2019, Xiaomi Finance changed its name to Xiaomi Division; in 2020, Xiaomi Mathematical Division changed its name to Star Mathematical Division again, and Hong Feng served as Chairman and CEO of Tianxing Mathematical Division.
However, in the rapid development, Xiaomi Finance has also stepped on a lot of holes. In 2018, a number of P2P platforms ran away, while several P2P platforms promoted by Xiaomi's financial products also appeared thunderstorms, and Xiaomi Finance became the object of rights protection.
In addition, the relevant regulatory policies in the financial sector are becoming more and more stringent, such as the new rules on online small loans introduced in 2020. Xiaomi has also begun structural and business adjustments in its financial business.
In 2021, Xiaomi appointed Lin Shiwei, group vice president and CFO, as CEO of Star Digital Division, and reported related work to Hong Feng, Chairman of Star Digital Division.
In February this year, it was reported that Star Digital was cutting back its business and laying off staff. Star Digital responded that there was no reduction, and that the relevant business lines were adjusted in the fourth quarter of 2021 based on the principle of focusing on the main business and service entities. The relevant business lines were integrated into the digital industry finance department and the digital retail finance department, which consists of credit technology business department, integrated business department, payment business department and international business department.
In fact, the personal consumer credit business of Star Digital is being undertaken by Xiaomi Consumer Finance, which was established in 2020.
Recently, Xiaomi re-appointed Lin Shiwei as chairman of Star Digital, reporting to Lei Jun, CEO of the Group, and appointed Yue Kai, general manager of Digital Industry Finance, as president of Star Digital, reporting to Lin Shiwei, chairman of Star Digital.
This means that Hong Feng has stepped down as chairman of Tianxing Division. At present, Hong Feng's position is Xiaomi's co-founder and senior vice president, but he has no actual responsibility for the business.
