Anning Chen: Murtaugh’s leave is not a sudden shock, Qoros will seek for new CEO

Gasgoo.com (Shanghai Jan 12th)- On 6th January, Qoros suddenly announced that the current CEO Phil Murtaugh would resign at the end of January for personal reasons. Chairman Anning Chen will take thepost as Acting CEO and conduct businesses under the help of Vice Chairman Dan Cohen and his management team.

The auto industry is shocked by Murtaugh’s leave, but Anning Chen told reporters that the case is not a sudden shock. According to him, after a period of communication, the two sides have reached a consensus on Murtaugh’s leave. Murtaugh and Sun Xiaodong have done great contribution to Qoros during their term, including establishing a full operation system. Their efforts have lifted Qoros’s sales volume to a 170% annual increase, with December’s sales volume exceeding 2,000 units and recording a historical high.

When speaking of Qoros’s vacant CEO position, Anning Chen said Qoros will arrange a suitable candidate. In his opinion, a qualified CEO would be one who can fully understand Qoros’s culture and corporate spirits of independence, innovation and entrepreneurship on one hand, and who can grasp the auto industry’s current and future development opportunity on the other hand. Qoros is currently on its initial stage, needinga creative CEO who could understand both the traditional automobiles and alternative energy vehicles to make full use of Qoros’s advantages to strengthen its competitive power and therefore master its own destiny, by way of allocating shareholders’ and social resources.

Being a start-up company, Qoros also adopts some employee motivation measures. But Anning Chen didn’t disclose too much on this, only mentioning that Qoros is continuously improving the measures. He also denied the market concern that Vice Executive President Sun Xiaodong would leave Qoros after Murtaugh’s resignation. As for the future investments, Anning Chen said Qoros would input more on traditional and new vehicle businesses. As an independent company, it’s possible that Qoros could share resources with any international company, not only Chery. For Qoros’s sales target in 2016, Anning Chen didn’t reveal any details.