Exclusive: Huobi’s new CFO is announced, former Canaan vice president Zhang Li to serve

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Wu Blockchain has exclusively learned that Huobi’s new CFO has been announced, and it is planned that Zhang Li, the former vice president of Canaan, will take the position. Currently, the listed company’s announcement has not yet been released.

Zhang Li served as vice president at Canaan, responsible for the company secretary and CFO system. She managed Canaan's AI sales department and strategic center (including the blockchain division, global ecology and other departments). She obtained a bachelor's and master's degree in automotive engineering from Tsinghua University in China in 2006 and 2009, respectively, and later obtained an EMBA from Guanghua School of Management, Peking University. She has about 9 years of experience in accounting, investment and corporate management. From October 2009 to September 2012, Zhang Li worked as a senior auditor at PricewaterhouseCoopers Zhongtian Accounting Firm; from June 2014 to August 2017, she served as secretary and vice president of Hangzhou Shunwang Technology; from March 2018 to June 2020, she served as vice president of Canaan, and left after Canaan's power was "returned" to Beijing. Recently, Huobi founder and CEO Li Lin invited her to join Huobi.

Wu Blockchain learned that Canaan said that Ms. Zhang Li resigned as the company's vice president. Mr. Zhang Nangeng, chairman of the board of directors of Canaan, said: "I would like to thank Ms. Zhang Li for her long-term contributions to the company and wish her a smooth career in the future."

(Huobi’s new CFO Zhang Li)

On the evening of the 10th, Huobi Technology issued an announcement stating that Li Shufei had resigned as the company's executive director, joint company secretary and chief financial officer due to his intention to develop his new business. Wu Wenqian, who also came from OKEx, also resigned as the company's joint company secretary. Lan Jianzhong, currently the CEO of Huobi Contract and Li Lin's classmate at Tsinghua University, will temporarily replace the executive director position of the listed company. At present, Li Shufei's head portrait and profile have not been removed from the executive team of Huobi Group.

As for the reason for Li Shufei's resignation, there are rumors that he was based in Hong Kong for a long time and did not fit in with the culture of Huobi Group's Beijing executives. In addition, when Li Shufei left OKEx, he said he wanted to be the CEO, which may be why he chose to start his own business. Li Shufei is known as the Wu Yanzu of the cryptocurrency circle because of his handsome appearance.

(Li Shufei, former CFO of Huobi)

In July 2018, Huobi founder Li Lin returned to Huobi because he felt that "the company had encountered some problems" and strengthened the strict control and deployment of the company's personnel and finances. Senior management changes were very frequent. Since the beginning of this year, new CTO, CIO, and CFO have taken office. Under the "balancing act" arrangement, Huobi Global CEO Weng Xiaoqi and COO Zhu Jiawei were successively exposed to the public.

In the first half of 2020, Zhu Ye, a technical executive from Alibaba, joined as Huobi's new CTO. The previous CTO Cheng Xianfeng was suspected to have resigned due to the 2019 outage.

On August 3, 2020, Sharlyn Wu from CMB International joined as Chief Investment Officer.

On August 10, 2020, former CFO Li Shufei resigned. On August 28, 2020, new CFO Zhang Li is scheduled to take office.

Huobi’s internal market system is also undergoing continuous changes. There was a rumor that a new CMO was appointed, but the subsequent upgrade and expansion of the market center dispelled this rumor to some extent. It is possible that the new CMO did not finally join the company in the power struggle, and some market functions still belong to the domain of the seventh master Weng Xiaoqi. There are also rumors that a new person in charge of the risk control department has joined.

Regarding the departure of Huobi executives, Li Lin said in an interview with Planet Daily after his return:

1. Mobility is natural and will occur in any company. It all comes down to a mismatch between platform development and employees’ own expectations, and perhaps one of the two parties cannot keep up.

2. Our philosophy is to bless any executive who leaves and maintain a good relationship with him. This is our business philosophy: do not regard him as a betrayal, but just that the needs of both parties do not match at the moment. You are a former colleague, and I certainly hope that you can develop better.

3. You can never expect to find someone to replace you. It is impossible. The founder is irreplaceable. But it does need to be cultivated, but the process is very long. It is easy to get thousands of soldiers, but it is difficult to get a general.

To be honest, although Huobi has experienced frequent changes in senior management in recent years, there have been few conflicts with former executives, and the company has also invested in a large number of entrepreneurial projects by former executives. However, due to the lack of "brotherhood", many projects have been left unfinished.