Cheetah Mobile Announces Changes to the Board of Directors

By PRNewswire On Mar 13, 2018

Cheetah Mobile Announces Changes to the Board of Directors

The Board Has Appointed Ning Zhang, Tianyang Zhao and Dr. Yi Ma, Each as an Independent Director

Cheetah Mobile, the leading mobile Internet company with strong global vision, announced changes to its Board of Directors effective immediately.

The Board has appointed Ning Zhang, Tianyang Zhao and Dr. Yi Ma each as an independent director. Zhao will become a member of the audit committee and the compensation committee of the Board. Zhang will become the chairman of the compensation committee and a member of the nominating and corporate governance committee of the Board. The Board has also appointed Jie Xiao and Pin Zhou, who serve as the Company’s Senior Vice Presidents, and Rui Hao, who serves as a Tencent Investment’s Executive Director, each as a director of the Board.

Meanwhile, Jun Lei has tendered his resignation as the Chairman and a member of the Board. Lei will remain as an advisor to Cheetah Mobile going forward. Fu Sheng, Cheetah Mobile’s Chief Executive Officer, will succeed Lei as the Chairman of the Board. In addition, Yuk Keung Ng, Wei Liu, Ke Ding, and Jeffrey Zhaohui Li have resigned from their directorships of the Company.

Also Read: Mobile Marketing Platform Adikteev Raises $12 Million

With the aforementioned changes, the Board now consists of eleven members, six of them are independent. The Board’s audit committee, compensation committee, and nominating and corporate governance committee are composed entirely of independent directors. As of the date of this announcement, the Board’s audit committee consists of Richard Weidong Ji, Michael Lingye Zuo, and Tianyang Zhao, and is chaired by Richard Weidong Ji.

The Board’s compensation committee consists of Ning Zhang, Michael Lingye Zuo, and Tianyang Zhao, and is chaired by Ning Zhang. The Board’s nominating and corporate governance committee consists of Michael Lingye Zuo, Michael Jinbo Yao, and Ning Zhang, and is chaired by Michael Jinbo Yao.

“We are honored and excited to welcome our new board members. Their extensive leadership experience, investment expertise, and technical knowledge will make a valuable contribution to us as we build our next stage of growth. On behalf of Cheetah Mobile’s Board of Directors, I would also like to thank all the previous board members who have made significant contributions to the Company in the past, ” said Sheng Fu, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, Cheetah Mobile.

Also Read: Interacting with Consumers Without Writing a Word

Zhang currently serves as the Founder and Chairman of Red Avenue Group. Red Avenue Group researches, produces and invests in new materials through three business units: Red Avenue New Materials Group, Red Avenue Investment Group, and Red Avenue Foundation. Zhang holds a doctoral degree in business administration from Arizona State University, an M.B.A. from the University of Warwick, an E.M.B.A. from Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, and a Bachelor of Science degree in biomedical engineering from Beijing Technology and Business University.

Zhao currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Beijing Shougang Fund, which he helped establish in 2010. Beijing Shougang Fund manages 12 funds with RMB48 billion in assets under management. As a professional investor, Zhao’s investments focus on four industries: smart parking and smart cities, medicine, supply chain finance, and sports. In the past few years, Zhao led Shougang Group in several public and private capital market transactions. Zhao graduated from Peking University and Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (EMBA).

Also Read: Teradata Names Martyn Etherington as Chief Marketing Officer to Bolster Its Cloud Strategy

Dr Ma currently serves as a Professor at the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (“EECS”) Department of the University of California at Berkeley. From 2014 to 2017, he was a Professor and the Executive Dean of the School of Information and Science and Technology, Shanghai Tech University, China. From 2009 to early 2014, he was a Principal Researcher and the Research Manager of the Visual Computing group at Microsoft Research Asia. From 2000 to 2011, he was an Associate Professor at the ECE Department of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His main research interest is in computer vision and high-dimensional data analysis. He received his Bachelors’ degree in Automation and Applied Mathematics from Tsinghua University (Beijing, China) in 1995, Master of Science degree in EECS in 1997, Master of Arts degree in Mathematics in 2000, and PhD degree in EECS in 2000, all from the University of California at Berkeley. He is ranked as the World’s Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate Analytics of Thomson Reuters since 2016, and ranked among the Top 50 of the World’s Most Influential Authors in Computer Science by Semantic Scholar, according to the Science Magazine 2016.

Also Read: Ford, Toyota, and Chevrolet Earned The Top Three Spots in the L2 Digital IQ Index; Auto 2018 Report

Jie Xiao has been senior vice president since November 2014, after having served as our vice president since October 2010. Xiao is in charge of business development, marketing, and commercial products. From 2008 to 2010, she was a senior manager at the enterprise marketing department of Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU), focusing on public relations. Before that, she worked as a public relations director at Qihoo 360 Technology Co., Ltd. and a communications manager for Yahoo! China. Xiao received a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Renmin University in 1999.

Zhou has been our senior vice president since March 2018, after having served as our advisor since March 1, 2015. Zhou is in charge of sales, strategic investment, human resources, and part of the Company’s smart hardware business. Zhou has more than 18 years of experience in the Internet industry, with extensive knowledge in product management and online advertising. Before joining Cheetah Mobile, Zhou served as the founder and CEO of Quwan.com, an e-commerce company in China. Before that, Zhou held various managerial positions in Baidu, Herosoft, and Tuopu Software Group. Zhou received a bachelor’s degree in International Finance from Shanxi Institute of Finance and Economics in 1999.