Lenovo’s former mobile head signs for Xiaomi

On December 18, a few days before Christmas, news broke out about Liu Chuanzhi, the founder of Lenovo retiring from his position as the Chairman of the Legend Holdings, the parent company of Lenovo. Followed by that on 31st December, Lenovo ZUK’s CEO Chang Cheng, a well-known figure on Weibo also confirmed his resignation due to health and family matters. But to everyone’s surprise, Cheng announced today on social media that he has joined Xiaomi as Vice President.

Chang Cheng resigned from Lenovo after spending 19 years at the company fulfilling various roles throughout his journey. He joined the firm in 2000 as the Director of Research and Development of the then newly established notebook unit. Later in 2011, he became the Vice President of the Lenovo Group while fulfilling his another role as the General Manager of the mobile end-to-end software platform. During the period of smartphone uprising, he led the mobile division of the company and was the CEO of ZUK mobile brand since its acquisition in 2015 till his resignation.

When Cheng announced his resignation, it was thought he will be taking a break for a certain period of time. But that did not happen as Xiaomi’s CEO Lei Jun posted on Weibo earlier today welcoming him to his company as the Vice President. A few moments later, Chen himself too confirmed his new role at Xiaomi on his Weibo profile. According to his post, he has joined Xiaomi on the 1st of January and is thrilled to have the new job working hard for his dreams.

At ZUK, Cheng tried to introduce new smartphones with a competitive pricing strategy but still, he could not turnaround the fate of Lenovo’s mobile division. The world’s largest PC maker still remains a relatively small player in the smartphone business.