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A few days ago, Ford Motor (China) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Ford China") has undergone an industrial and commercial change, changing its legal representative from ANNING CHEN (Chen Anning) to SHENGPO WU (Wu Shengbo). Meanwhile, SHENGPO WU (Wu Shengbo) became chairman of Ford China, and ANNING CHEN (Chen Anning) decided to retire.

On February 24th, Ford China announced that Chen Anning, President and CEO of Ford China, has decided to retire. Wu Shengbo, current Managing Director and Chief operating Officer of Ford China, will formally take over as President and CEO of Ford China from March 1, reporting to ∙ Jim Farley, President and CEO of Ford Motor Company. After stepping down from Ford China, Chen Anning will participate in projects to enhance the company's global strategic competitiveness and business growth, and will continue to report to Jim ∙ Farley. He will officially retire on October 1 this year, ending more than 20 years of career at Ford Motor Company.

Born in 1961, Chen Anning received a doctorate in engineering from the University of Cincinnati and an MBA from the Ross School of Business of the University of Michigan. In 1992, Chen Anning joined Ford, engaged in small vehicle development, platform technology research and development, joint venture business development and other projects.

In 2009, Chen Anning joined Chery Automobile and successively served as Deputy General Manager of Chery Automobile and President of Automotive Engineering and Technology Research and Development Institute. In February 2012, Chen Anning served as chairman of Chery Jaguar Land Rover. In December 2014, Chen Anning was promoted to Executive Vice President and Chief operating Officer of Chery Automotive, while replacing Guo Qian as Chairman and CEO of Guanzhi Automobile. In April 2017, Chen Anning was promoted to general manager of Chery Automobile Co., Ltd., second only to Chairman Yin Tongyue. A year later, Chen Anning left Chery for "personal and family reasons" and finally returned to Ford.

In November 2018, Chen Anning returned to Ford as Ford's global vice president and president and CEO of Ford Motor China, responsible for the development of Ford's business in China, including Ford and Lincoln's import business, Changan Ford, Jiangling Ford and operations in Taiwan, directly to Jim, executive vice president and president of global markets of Ford Motor. Jim Farley reports. Prior to this, Ford made a major adjustment to the global market, announcing the independence of Ford China from the Asia-Pacific region and becoming Ford's core market alongside the North American market. In other words, the Chinese market, which is more valued and independent by Ford, is also responsible for a leader with rich experience in the Chinese auto market and Chinese ancestry.

Reviewing the history, Ford Motor and Changan Motor established Changan Ford as a joint venture in 2001, and rapidly improved its product camp at the beginning of its establishment, with the advent of Wing Tiger, Fox, Yibo, Mondeo, Carnival, Taurus, Forrest, Ruijie and so on. Ten years after entering the Chinese market, Changan Ford suddenly broke out, selling 321000 vehicles in 2011, and sales have grown rapidly in the years since. Sales peaked at 957000 in 2016.

When Changan Ford made every effort to hit the key node of "million-year sales", the broken axle appeared in a large area of Ford wing tiger model, which greatly affected the brand image of Changan Ford. Since then, Changan Ford's sales began to decline, selling 828000 vehicles for the whole of 2017. However, Changan Ford at that time was still full of expectations for the future. In December 2017, Ford and Changan signed the "deepening Strategic Partnership Framework Agreement" to strive for sales to break through the million mark in 2019. However, contrary to one's wishes, Changan Ford plummeted to 378000 vehicles and 184000 vehicles respectively from 2018 to 2019, and the goal of "million sales" became a bubble.

At that time, Changan Ford was in dire straits. after a precipice decline in 2017, Chen Anning, who had just left Chery and was familiar with Ford, became the best candidate in the face of negative growth in the Chinese market.

In 2019, Chen Anning put forward the "Ford China 2.0" strategic plan. since then, Ford has actively promoted the transformation in the field of electrification and intelligence with the brand spirit of "avant-garde innovation". Under the leadership of Chen Anning, Ford China successfully promoted the localization of the Lincoln brand and quickly launched a number of domestic Lincoln brand SUV models to achieve rapid and sustained brand growth. In 2022, with the core concept of "more Ford, more China", Ford launched a new generation of Mondeo, new explorer, new Lincoln Z and other models, and successfully introduced a new generation of Ford star products, the Fmur150 Raptor. In addition, in the face of increasingly fierce competition, Ford China established Ford Electric Mach Technology Co., Ltd., launched the pure electric SUV Ford Electric Horse Mustang Mach-E model, deeply focused on the R & D and operation of intelligent electric vehicles in the Chinese market, and further supported the Ford+ program.

Unfortunately, Changan Ford's sales are falling instead of rising, and the downward trend is still expanding. In 2022, Changan Ford sold a total of 251000 vehicles, down 17.61% from a year earlier. It is understood that this sales performance is only higher than the 184000 vehicles in 2019, making Changan Ford the second lowest in 10 years.

In terms of specific models, the upgraded Mondeo sold a total of 58449 vehicles in 2022, although there is a significant increase compared with previous years, but there is still a huge gap compared with Camry, Accord and other models. After the replacement of the four-cylinder engine, the Fox's sales growth fell far short of expectations, with retail sales of 16523 units for the whole year, not even as good as the monthly sales of a popular model. In terms of other models, the EVOS, which went on sale at the end of 2021, sold only 5942 vehicles in the whole year, compared with 26215 for Ruiji, 22684 for Ruijie and 20520 for explorers.

A few days ago, Changan Ford Ruijie L opened a pre-sale, with a total of seven new models, of which the fuel version was pre-sold at 22.98-289800 and the hybrid version at 25.98-319800. Ruiji, EVOS, Fox failed one after another, making Changan Ford once again bet on the new sharp boundary L will be directly related to the future market trend of Changan Ford.

Today, Chen Anning, who is more familiar with Ford, has retired, and Wu Shengbo leads the development of Ford in the Chinese market. It is also unknown where Ford China will go under Wu Shengbo's leadership. Data show that Wu Shengbo once worked for GE, Honeywell and Osram, and joined Ford in October 2022 as managing director and chief operating officer of Ford China.

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