Original Dong Mingzhu is “handing over” Gree

Interestingly, on the same day that Dong Mingzhu resigned as the legal representative of Gree E-commerce, she spent 380,000 yuan to increase her holdings of 10,000 Gree Electric shares. This was the first time in nine years that she publicly increased her holdings of Gree shares through bidding transactions.

Handing it over with one hand and buying it with the other, Dong Mingzhu is making arrangements in advance for her curtain call in a leisurely manner, while conveying clear confidence to investors and management.

However, Dong Mingzhu wants to hand over the baton, but can the “next Dong Mingzhu” really catch the baton?

1

Dong Mingzhu tries to “hand over the baton”

Dong Mingzhu’s plan to step down has already started as early as 2024.

In August 2024, Dong Mingzhu resigned as the legal representative and chairman of Chengdu Gree Xinhui Medical Equipment Co., Ltd.; in 2025, Dong Mingzhu resigned as the president of Gree Electric Appliances and the legal representative and chairman of Zhuhai Zero Boundary Integrated Circuit Co., Ltd.;

By 2026, Dong Mingzhu will step down as the legal representative of Zhuhai Gree Electronic Components Co., Ltd., Zhuhai Gree Prepared Vegetable Equipment Technology Development Co., Ltd. and Gree E-Commerce Co., Ltd. respectively.

In just two years, Dong Mingzhu has stepped down six times, and the signal has been very clear: she is “letting go” in a step-by-step manner, handing over the legal representatives and operational management duties of some specific business companies to other successors.

This series of “retirement” actions was also regarded by the outside world as a signal that Dong Mingzhu intends to hand over the baton.

After all, the founder of Midea, one of the three white goods giants, stepped down as chairman when he was 70 years old and was replaced by 45-year-old professional manager Fang Hongbo. Haier founder Zhang Ruimin also took the initiative to no longer participate in the nomination of the new director when he was 72 years old. However, 72-year-old Dong Mingzhu still sticks to the front line and has not given a clear retirement timetable.

It was not until recent years that Dong Mingzhu’s attitude changed subtly.

In an interview in December 2024, Dong Mingzhu made it clear, “None of my shareholders will let me quit. The people who want me to quit are not shareholders, let alone my employees.”

But in February 2025, Dong Mingzhu revealed in a talk show: “The successor to Gree has been found, and there are three or four preliminary candidates. They are on different platforms and in different positions. (He can be tried) The key is to have one person come out.”

It is not difficult to see that even if Dong Mingzhu intends to hand over the baton, how and to whom to hand it over is not an easy decision.

For this reason, Dong Mingzhu chose the transition method of “handing over power without handing over responsibility”.

Although Dong Mingzhu withdrew from the core management team of a series of Gree subsidiaries, strictly speaking, she only handed over the daily management of specific businesses to people who better understand the business, while Dong Mingzhu herself is still firmly in the core management position of the listed company.

The management team that took over the “operation baton” from Dong Mingzhu may be the “reserve team” for Gree’s successor. After all, they are not airborne professional managers, but veterans who have been trained within the Gree system for many years.

Zhang Xinglei, who took over the position of legal representative of Gree e-commerce, also attended Gree’s 2025 performance briefing as the president’s assistant in May this year to introduce the operating conditions of refrigerators, washing machines and household appliances.

Zhang Wei, who took over as the president of Gree Electric Appliances, joined Gree Electric Appliances in 1999 and served successively as the head of the company’s pipeline branch factory, material supply department, corporate management department, assistant to the company president, etc., and joined the board of directors in January 2019.

Dong Mingzhu once made it clear that “young management teams must be provided with more opportunities to show at the front desk.” She believes that (the team) must find its own existence, so that young teams can be brought out.

Judging from these arrangements, Dong Mingzhu is also “testing”, and the method of testing is also very pragmatic – first delegate power at the subsidiary level, let candidates handle specific businesses, and use actual combat to test abilities, rather than handing over the group’s power in one step.

Of course, it has not yet been determined whether these managers will eventually move to the management of the parent company. But what is certain is that Dong Mingzhu is learning to let go, and Gree is also beginning to try to be more than just “Dong Mingzhu’s Gree”.

2

Pressure is hidden in performance

Looking at the business world, any company that wants to be built to last will have to answer the question of “succession.”

But for Gree, this problem is particularly difficult. The reason is that in the past 20 years, Dong Mingzhu’s “personal signature” has always been deeply bound to Gree. Once separated, it will inevitably experience labor pains.

In 2014, Dong Mingzhu replaced Jackie Chan, Gree’s spokesperson at the time, and began to use her own image to endorse Gree. Even the startup page of Gree’s mobile phone has Dong Mingzhu’s greetings and signature.

After that, Dong Mingzhu participated in several variety shows such as “I Am the Founder” and “We Are New in the Workplace”, and made eye-catching public speeches from time to time. While maintaining her personal exposure, she also brought continuous topicality to Gree.

In 2019, Gree built a new direct distribution platform, but there is no “Gree” in the name of the mall, but it is directly called “Dong Mingzhu’s Store”; in 2025, Gree upgraded its offline stores from single air-conditioning sales to a whole-house healthy home appliance experience space. The new strategic brand “Dong Mingzhu Healthy Home” is also spearheaded by Dong Mingzhu IP. There are currently thousands of stores across the country.

In recent years, Dong Mingzhu has personally carried out live broadcasts to promote Gree’s e-commerce business. Dong Mingzhu once said: “What I think about is not how much goods I can bring, but how to let more than 30,000 specialty stores integrate live broadcasting.”

Along the way, Gree and Dong Mingzhu have become inseparable, not only in terms of brand image and product trust, but also in the channel resources, management authority and interest network that Dong Mingzhu has accumulated over many years of working in the Gree system.

For example, Gree’s dealer system across the country was almost built by her. She created a “large dealer-centered” sales model, turning large dealers into Gree partners to stabilize Gree’s distribution system.

After that, although Gree launched channel reforms at the end of 2019, which significantly weakened the level of intermediate sales companies and directly affected the vested interests of many traditional large dealers, this difficult change was implemented smoothly.

There is no other reason than that the helmsman of Gree is Dong Mingzhu. Channel reform is the most sensitive operation within an enterprise. Only Dong Mingzhu personally performs the surgery and comforts him can he hold his ground and push forward the reform smoothly.

Among them, the shareholding platform “Jinghai Internet Technology Development Co., Ltd.” funded by Gree’s provincial sales companies in various regions has reduced its holdings of Gree shares twice in 2020 and 2022. But in 2025, it turned to increasing its holdings and announced that it planned to spend 1.05 billion to 2.1 billion yuan to buy Gree Electric Appliances, which also brought a phased end to the game between Gree and dealers.

Dong Mingzhu has contributed greatly to Gree’s stable development over the years.

Dong Mingzhu’s “one man conquers the world” style of play has always been unfavorable in the turbulent era; but as the industry enters stock competition, companies compete for organizational capabilities and endurance. A hero’s single-point breakthrough will ultimately be no match for the organization’s long-term battle.

This pressure is also directly reflected in Gree’s performance.

In the past two years, Gree has begun to decline in revenue and profits. In 2023, Gree’s revenue reached a historical high of 205 billion yuan, but it began to turn downward in 2024, and by 2025, both revenue and profit had declined.

In the first half of 2026, Gree’s revenue was 89.673 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 8.14%; net profit attributable to the parent company was 13.278 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 7.87%, continuing the downward trend since 2025.

Gree’s performance decline is due to the sluggish market in the home appliance industry. However, Midea and Haier, both the three giants in home appliances, are not having such a bad life.

In 2025, Midea’s revenue and net profit will achieve double-digit growth; Haier’s revenue and profit will both hit new highs. Only Gree is shrinking, and the gap between it and Midea and Haier is becoming wider and wider.

3

Who is the next “Dong Mingzhu”?

In this context, handover is no longer an option that can be taken slowly.

On the contrary, the more pressure Gree has on its performance, the more it needs a flexible and replicable organizational system. However, such an organizational system is destined to be difficult to be born in the Dong Mingzhu era of “one man dominates the world”.

In fact, Gree has not tried to find a successor.

Once upon a time, Dong Mingzhu, Huang Hui, and Wang Jingdong were known as Gree’s “Iron Triangle.” Huang Hui is also regarded as Gree’s “second position” and has served as assistant to the president, vice president, and executive president; Wang Jingdong also served as financial director, secretary to the board of directors, and vice president.

However, after Gree completed its equity reform in 2019, Huang Hui and Wang Jingdong left Gree one after another in less than half a year. Within Gree, there may still be a question mark as to whether Huang Hui is really on the candidate list for successor.

A few months after Huang Hui resigned, Dong Mingzhu selected Meng Yutong from the variety show “We Are New in the Workplace” and recruited her to Gree and stayed with her as a secretary. She also took her with her on live broadcasts to promote goods, and even publicly stated that “Meng Yutong meets the criteria for a successor.” Two years later, Meng Yutong announced his resignation from Gree. Dong Mingzhu explained to the public that Meng Yutong loved live broadcasting more than secretarial work.

Going around in circles, it is difficult for the outside world to tell whether this “successor” story that has lasted for many years is a gimmick for Dong Mingzhu to attract attention, or a sincere cultivation that has failed time and time again.

However, referring to Dong Mingzhu’s requirements for future successors, “they must dare to take responsibility like themselves, and be fully committed and willing to devote their lives.” The successor Dong Mingzhu wants is more like “another self”, a successor who can inherit Dong Mingzhu’s ideas.

But Dong Mingzhu also admitted in an interview, “Such a successor is not easy to find, people will change.”

This is also Gree’s biggest contradiction at the moment.

No matter from the perspective of popularity, decision-making mechanism or distribution system, the company has formed a path dependence on Dong Mingzhu, but the stronger the individual, the company’s organizational capabilities will be weakened;

But today’s Gree is no longer a Gree that only made air conditioners in the past, but a Gree that spans the two major industries of consumption and industry. It is no longer realistic to rely on Dong Mingzhu alone to carry him through the next journey.

How to dismantle “Dong Mingzhu’s dependence syndrome” has become Gree’s next biggest challenge.

In the context of “Dong Mingzhu Health Home” opening all over the country, can this brand trust built on Dong Mingzhu smoothly return to the Gree brand itself? In the context of long-term high concentration of the governance structure on Dong Mingzhu, can the company’s organizational system operate smoothly in the “post-Dong Mingzhu era” instead of people in the system and people in the system?

After Dong Mingzhu gradually “delegates power”, whether multiple business sectors such as e-commerce, electronic components, and prepared vegetable equipment can grow and run through the new growth logic are the key signals for Gree to complete the handover between the old and the new.

Perhaps, this is the true meaning of Gree’s handover, not to find a successor for Dong Mingzhu, but to find the answer to “win without Dong Mingzhu” for Gree.

Related Reading

• Short plays have been hard to make money for a long time2026-09-30
• Magic9 invites Alai, Honor will not be a substitute this time2026-09-30
• McDonald’s AI pricing push is widening the divide with some franchisees2026-09-30
• Yu Minhong doesn’t take Luo Yonghao as a stumbling block+2026-09-30
• Original Make a fortune in silence, Meitu earned 600 million in half a year2026-09-30