Anxious for change! Behind the CEO change in Longhu： Young real estate people have come to the front desk one after another.

Real estate, which is undergoing deep adjustment, is eager to change, and talent is undoubtedly the correct way to solve the problem. On February 28th, Longhu Group announced that it appointed Shao Mingxiao as the vice chairman of the board of directors, resigned as the CEO and appointed Chen Xuping as the CEO.

According to insiders, in the future, Shao Mingxiao will further assist Wu Yajun, the chairman of Longhu Group, to focus on the strategic level of the company, organize the team and empower the knowledge, and at the same time help the new CEO Chen Xuping to be more successful, while the latter will mainly lead the functional teams to manage the normal operation of the company.

This is the most important personnel adjustment of Longhu Group in recent ten years, and this adjustment is relatively rare among leading housing enterprises. According to Hexun Real Estate Observation, the last company that made similar adjustments was Shimao Group, which appointed Xu Shitan as the company’s president in 2019, and Zhu Jiusheng as the president of Vanke in 2018. Both adjustments had their own reasons.

The reason why this is the most important adjustment of Longhu is that Shao Mingxiao has been the CEO of Longhu Group for the past ten years, and the company has been able to grow and develop during this period. He brought the sales scale of Longhu from 38.3 billion to 290 billion, and was selected into the Fortune Global 500. He successively put forward the strategies of "expanding the depth, approaching the urban area, controlling the scale, holding the business" and "space as a service". Up to now, Longhu has more than 100 commercial projects in hand, providing a stable rent inflow for Longhu, and Longhu is also continuing to promote the coordinated development of multiple channels.

More importantly, in the situation that the industry generally suffers from liquidity crisis and debt default continues, Longhu Group has maintained a green file for five consecutive years with steady growth and financial self-discipline, which not only escaped unscathed in this crisis, but also gained the initiative and opportunities for development. It can be said that Shao Mingxiao contributed a lot to this.

On this occasion, Chen Xuping’s promotion to CEO of Longhu is undoubtedly stepping on the shoulders of giants, and he can show his talents in the future. This is also the greatest expectation of the outside world. From this perspective, this is not just a simple personnel change, which may mean that the development strategy of Longhu Group will change.

An industry insider who didn’t want to be named analyzed that Longhu Group’s personnel changes at this time may be due to two considerations. First, the company’s own metabolism, it is very common to change the CEO every 10 years, and second, it is suitable for the strategy of the next three to five years. Although Longhu Group did not disclose the new strategic direction, the probability of housing enterprises playing in the new cycle is different from before.

Chen Xuping’s "Upper Position" after 80s

"A new generation of young talents." This is the impression of many employees in Longhu on Chen Xuping. However, from the outside world, Chen Xuping’s position has risen rapidly. More than half a year ago, he first "officially" walked into the spotlight of the media, and he was promoted to the first executive officer so quickly, which can be described as a rapid rise.

It is reported that on July 8, 2021, Longhu issued an announcement internally, announcing the latest organizational restructuring and personnel changes. The biggest change was the newly established real estate waterway. Chen Xuping, then vice president of Longhu Group, was appointed as the general manager of the real estate waterway and concurrently served as the general manager of the real estate waterway marketing department.

Official and student, this is one of the most important labels on Chen Xuping. According to the data, Chen Xuping graduated from Tsinghua University with a master’s degree in civil engineering in 2008, joined Longhu Group as an official student in the same year, and has worked in Longhu for 14 years. For Longhu Group, Chen Xuping is a young executive trained from the system.

Chen Xuping’s best-known record comes from Chengdu. At the end of 2016, he became the general manager of Chengdu Company. During his tenure, the real estate development sales of Chengdu Longhu increased from 5.3 billion yuan in 2016 to 18.023 billion yuan in 2020. Not only that, his Chengdu has become a sample of multi-channel collaborative landing under the strategy of "space as a service", and has formed a situation of going hand in hand.

Not only did he have a successful record, but Chen Xuping was highly recognized by the management. At the performance meeting in the first half of 2021, Chen Xuping, then the general manager of Real Estate Waterway, attended the performance conference for the first time, which has initially attracted attention. At that time, Shao Mingxiao commented on him as "an executive with a very comprehensive knowledge structure, very hard work and strong leadership."

Longhu Group is very much looking forward to the person in charge of the real estate track. Shao Mingxiao said last year that in the future, it is hoped that the business of C1 Channel, from product positioning at the client, to land acquisition, to operation positioning, turnover speed, delivery speed and service quality after delivery, can further improve the granularity and fineness.

It can be seen from the speed of promotion that Chen Xuping has been recognized in these aspects. However, these requirements are more like the basic threshold. What Chen Xuping is facing now is the challenge of how to ensure growth in the downturn of the real estate industry.

According to Miss Dong’s report, in 2022, Longhu will continue to shrink its investment in some non-real estate businesses except commercial and residential services. As the market goes down, the company believes that the sales target of Longhu in 2022 should be lowered, but the extent of Wu Yajun’s acceptance of the downward adjustment is relatively limited.

The challenge faced by Chen Xuping is unprecedented. On the one hand, at present, the outside world generally has no confidence in the real estate industry, especially the buyers generally lose the expectation of rising house prices, and the motivation to buy houses is no longer the same; On the other hand, in the next new cycle of real estate, the stone will grow, and it will grow on the basis of 300 billion. Compared with any previous stage, the difficulty coefficient is higher.

The competition in the new stage has just begun. Apart from the real estate track, Chen Xuping’s challenge lies in how to find the second growth curve or even the third growth curve that can match the development main business, so as to realize the stable growth of profits with higher quality. For Chen Xuping, although the pressure is not small, it is a rare opportunity.

Talents tend to be younger.

Becoming the CEO of a leading real estate enterprise after 1980s is not common, but it also represents the current employment trend in the industry.

Recently, in addition to the CEO change of Longhu Group, Xuhui also made similar moves. On February 21st, Xuhui announced that Zhou Yiqun, the former executive vice president of Renheng Land Group, would join the company as the vice president and general manager of the operation center. According to the data, Zhou Yiqun has 18 years of experience in the real estate industry, and previously served as executive vice president of Renheng Land Group.

According to the observation of Hexun Real Estate, Chen Xuping and Zhou Yiqun have several similarities: First, they are young, Chen Xuping is 82 years old and Zhou Yiqun is 79 years old; Second, he has rich experience. For example, Chen Xuping made Chengdu a sample of Longhu multi-channel going hand in hand, while Zhou Yiqun was previously in charge of the group’s investment, commerce, hotels and cultural tourism business; The third is to grasp the details. It is reported that Chen Xuping’s management granularity is very fine, and he likes to emphasize the key details. Zhou Yiqun’s business is solid and pays attention to regional deep cultivation.

"Let Xuhui’s refined management and lean management go to a higher level!" Lin Zhong, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Xuhui Group, gave high hopes to Zhou Yiqun, and said that Xuhui should build a fighting and young talent team. According to the "789 Project", more and more post-70 s, post-80 s and post-90 s will appear in the core teams of Xuhui executives, city managers and project managers in the future.

"The requirements of real estate enterprises for talents are: I hope that they are not only professional in real estate development, but also have cross-border thinking and are good at breakthroughs." Jia Chunhui, founder of the feasibility study think tank, observed: "At present, in addition to strategic focus and deep business cultivation, real estate enterprises also hope to find new outlets and growth points in order to achieve sustainable development."

Jia Chunhui believes: "As the real estate industry enters a new cycle, real estate enterprises are constantly adjusting their talent structure and tend to be younger. The proportion of new endogenous talents represented by Guan Peisheng will continue to be improved. The optimization of the talent structure plays a vital role in enhancing the cultural cohesion of enterprises and enhancing the team’s combat effectiveness. "

It is worth noting that in the era of management bonus, although talent is the core point to solve the industry problems, enterprises are also facing certain difficulties in talent in the context of the contraction of the whole real estate industry.

On the one hand, the golden age and silver age have passed, and it is a question whether real estate is still attractive to talents. The more common phenomenon in the industry is the decline in income and large-scale layoffs. According to Hexun real estate inventory, Zhu Rongbin, president of Sunshine City (000671), Chi Feng, president of Blu-ray Development (600466), Hu Ruoxiang, vice president of Longhu Group, and E-shed, chief partner of Vanke Group, have left their jobs in the past six months.

"We are now in the environment of the’ Black Iron Age’. Can we still give that much money?" Yu Liang, Chairman of Vanke’s Board of Directors, expressed concern at the 2022 annual meeting. He said that it is easier for industries such as Meta-universe, games and energy to encourage enterprises to find suitable people through money, and real estate has no such bidding ability today.

On the other hand, the industry is at different stages and needs corresponding organizational structure and talents, and the real estate industry has entered a "shrinking state", which means that compared with the talents who expand the territory during the period of high growth, housing enterprises need more operational talents and talents who know more about refined operation, and such talents are not many and even need time to cultivate.

Perhaps, compared with attracting talents, it is more important to change thinking. Yu Liang told a story at the meeting: "The project manager of Wuhu Company is Li Bin. He insists on going to the construction site for more than 300 days a year. If he has nothing to do, he will go to the construction site for a turn and have a look. In exchange for ten years, there have been no construction site accidents and no group complaints." Hu Baosen, chairman of Jianye Group, also said that due to the downsizing, more than half of the people may be required to return to the front line. He hoped that employees could actively go to the places where development is most needed, and go to posts that can create more value and create more value.

For the real estate industry, the radical era of hegemony may really come to an end for the time being, but there is still a lot of room for improvement and improvement in the industry. These are good opportunities. Real estate developers should make down-to-earth efforts to create good products and services and create more value.