Produced by / Dali Finance

Written by / Wei Li

From 2024 to 2026, China’s domestic internet behemoths, new energy vehicle manufacturers, and luxury car brands have quietly undergone a significant reshuffle at the top of their PR and marketing departments.

Unlike routine mid-level rotations, this wave of changes has swept through core leaders responsible for brand communication, crisis management, and marketing strategies. It not only reflects the evolution of corporate brand strategies but also highlights a new trend in talent mobility amid shifting industry dynamics: seasoned internet PR veterans are departing en masse, with new energy automakers emerging as the primary beneficiaries of this talent exodus.

Throughout this period of personnel upheaval, Baidu’s PR missteps and subsequent recoveries, East Buy’s internal frictions, Xiaomi’s strategic PR reinforcements, and automakers’ cross-industry talent raids have collectively painted a vivid picture of the job market and capital market trends over the past two years.

01 Baidu: From PR Blunders to Steady Recovery, Completing a PR Overhaul

Baidu has been the most emblematic case of PR turmoil among major firms in recent years. In August 2021, Qu Jing, dubbed the “Iron Lady of Huawei PR,” joined Baidu as Vice President of Group PR, taking charge of the company’s top PR role with a multi-million-dollar annual salary, fully responsible for public communication and crisis management.

However, her tenure was short-lived. In May 2024, Qu Jing sparked widespread controversy with remarks in her short videos, including statements like, “I instantly approve resignations when employees break up,” which ignited public outrage and severely damaged Baidu’s brand reputation and stock performance.

After the scandal escalated, Qu Jing resigned swiftly on May 9, 2024, marking one of the most notable PR missteps in recent internet history.

Following a three-month PR leadership vacuum, in August 2024, Jiang Xinjie, a seasoned media professional and former Vice President of PR at 360—known for authoring a perfect-score college entrance exam essay titled “The Death of Red Hare”—took over as Baidu’s top PR VP. Abandoning the influencer-driven PR model, he adopted a steady, professional communication approach, stabilizing the company’s public image.

Additionally, Guo Feng, a core PR executive at Baidu (formerly PR Director), resigned in late 2025 and officially joined Seres & AITO in early 2026 as the top PR and marketing executive, becoming a prime example of talent outflow from Baidu.

Li Min, another seasoned PR executive from Baidu’s PR system, boasts deep experience in public sentiment risk control and brand PR at major firms, having accumulated mature operational expertise in internet giant PR. After leaving Baidu, she transitioned to Didi as Vice President of PR, overseeing brand communication, public engagement, and crisis management, symbolizing Baidu’s PR talent exodus to the mobility sector.

Zhu Guang, a veteran PR leader at Baidu, long oversaw Baidu Group’s PR, marketing, and brand systems, playing a pivotal role in building Baidu’s early public opinion foundation. Later, due to strategic adjustments, Zhu Guang shifted entirely out of the PR system to the business line, serving as CEO of Du Xiaoman and delving into the fintech sector, completing a key transformation from “top PR executive” to “business leader.”

Yuan Foyu, once in charge of Baidu Group’s brand and PR systems, was the core leader responsible for Baidu’s public opinion dissemination and brand marketing. Subsequently, with Baidu’s AI and cloud strategy upgrades, Yuan Foyu underwent a significant role adjustment, transitioning to Vice President of Baidu Cloud Intelligence, exiting the PR sequence, and focusing on Baidu Smart Cloud’s frontline business, overseeing commercialization in core sectors such as pan-technology, finance, and energy, becoming one of the core operators of Baidu’s B2B strategy.

02 Internet Giants: Turbulent Reshuffles, Top Talent Flowing Out

Beyond Baidu, East Buy, Xiaomi, 360, and ByteDance have all witnessed key adjustments in their core PR positions, driven primarily by internal frictions in smaller firms and strategic shifts in larger ones.

Li Guoxun, East Buy’s Vice President of PR, quietly stepped down in late 2025 without any official announcement. This veteran PR professional, whose resume spans Baidu, Ctrip, and Genki Forest, joined East Buy in 2022 during its peak traffic period. His eventual departure, amid the loss of company anchors and declining reputation, marked the end of East Buy’s brand PR era.

Xiaomi initiated a comprehensive strengthening of its PR team in 2026, with veteran Xu Jieyun returning to lead the group’s top PR position, while the former head, Wang Hua, was reassigned and exited the PR system.

Xu Fei, Group CMO and top marketing executive, was promoted to Group Vice President and CMO in April 2026, overseeing the group’s brand, marketing, and sales operations, reporting directly to Lei Jun, and setting the tone for the marketing system at the highest level.

Simultaneously, there have been intensive recruitments: In March 2026, Zeng Yang, former Vice President of Starry Meizu (Meizu), joined to oversee media communication, and in May 2026, Zhang Yongsheng, former Vice President of PR at 360, joined as a public opinion advisor, comprehensively strengthening Xiaomi’s crisis PR and public opinion system (denied by Xiaomi’s PR department, currently in the rumor stage, no official announcement).

360 experienced core talent loss, with Zhang Yongsheng leaving to join Xiaomi, leading to adjustments in the group’s PR system. At ByteDance, Yang Jibin, the core PR director, left in the first quarter of 2026 to join Li Auto as the top PR executive, marking a symbolic shift of internet talent into the automotive industry.

Alibaba and Ant Group’s top PR and marketing positions have seen no core changes in the past two years, remaining generally stable. Previously, Chong Xiaomeng, the PR head of Hema Fresh, was later rotated to the top PR position at Alibaba’s Digital Entertainment Group before returning to Alibaba Group’s Beijing branch.

Didi’s top PR, government relations, and brand positions have seen no public changes in the past two years, maintaining a low-profile stability with a stable team structure.

JD.com, Kuaishou, and Bilibili have remained generally stable, with only Xi Dawei, the top PR executive at JD Logistics, leaving in early 2026. The industry overall presents a pattern of “stable at the top, competitive in the middle.”

03 Dreame Technology: Founder Yu Hao Directly Oversees + Top PR Executive + Full-Staff Matrix Approach

Dreame Technology is the most talked-about brand in the consumer tech sector’s PR landscape in 2026. Contrary to industry rumors of “no top PR executive,” the company currently has Yang Yang as its dedicated top PR/brand executive, with a core team sourced from the 360 system, fully addressing Dreame’s professional PR gap and forming a new communication structure of “founder strategic oversight + professional PR operations.”

She is a product of the 360 PR system, with deep experience in brand public opinion, media relations, and crisis PR in the internet tech and smart hardware industries. She is highly familiar with the high-intensity public opinion risk control, topic marketing, and crisis response tactics of internet giants, being a core backbone cultivated by the mature 360 PR system, possessing strong public opinion sensitivity and practical operational capabilities.

Previously, Dreame relied heavily on founder Yu Hao to personally speak out and a full-staff matrix to create momentum, adopting an aggressive communication approach with high topic heat but lacking standardized PR processes and public opinion risk control systems.

Unlike the mainstream industry configuration of small but elite PR teams, Dreame still maintains a large-scale communication matrix and a full-staff content approach. It claims to have 200 BU PR personnel responsible for brand PR and public opinion across various business lines.

Yang Yang’s entry is also a typical case of 360 PR talent overflowing into the consumer tech sector, echoing the moves of Zhang Yongsheng, a former 360 executive, and Jiang Xinjie, Baidu’s top PR executive, reinforcing the major industry trend of cross-border talent mobility in internet PR in 2026.

04 Automotive Sector: Frenzied Poaching, Becoming the Ultimate Destination for PR Talent

In recent years, as competition among new energy automakers intensifies, brand public opinion battles and user reputation wars have become fierce, leading automakers to aggressively poach senior internet PR operators with high salaries, making cross-border talent mobility an industry norm.

Among the new forces, Li Auto brought in Yang Jibin, the former PR head from ByteDance, to reshape its brand public opinion system; XPeng Motors made frequent moves, recruiting Li Pengcheng in February 2026, who has dual experience in luxury brands and new forces, as its Brand PR General Manager, and in May 2026, rumors emerged that Yu Tao, the former marketing head of OnePlus, would join to oversee the marketing sector.

Notably, Li Pengcheng had previously served as CMO of Volkswagen Anhui in March 2026 before swiftly jumping ship to XPeng within two months, highlighting the scarcity of high-end marketing talent in the automotive sector.

Neta Auto invited veteran media professional Chen Chaohua to serve as Vice President, addressing criticisms of weak marketing; Zeekr introduced Ali-system marketing talent Shen Fangjun, leveraging internet tactics to upgrade its brand operations.

Traditional luxury automakers have initiated localization reshuffles. In June 2026, Fang Yuan, a veteran with 25 years of industry experience, took over as Vice President of Corporate Affairs and PR at BMW China.

Li Fangfang at Ford China succeeded the retiring Yang Meishong in April 2026, marking the end of the era where foreign executives dominated PR at traditional automakers, fully adapting to the domestic public opinion environment.

Industry Conclusion

Dali Finance has combed through the changes in top PR and marketing positions in recent years, revealing a clear core trend:

As the internet industry’s growth dividends peak and internal frictions intensify, while the automotive sector’s competition heats up and brand demand explodes, PR talent is no longer confined to circulation within the internet sphere; large-scale cross-border entry into the automotive industry has become the mainstream.

For companies, the frequent turnover of top PR executives essentially represents a reevaluation of brand strategies: internet firms are retracting their public opinion frontlines and returning to stable operations, while automakers are fully ramping up brand building and crisis response.

This ongoing talent reshuffle also signals that corporate brand competition is officially entering a new phase of refinement and specialization.