---
title: "Returning to the FMCG Track, Former Alibaba Executive Lin Xiaohai Takes Over as CEO of Shanghai Jahwa"
description: "Shanghai Jahwa United Co., Ltd. recently announced that Pan Qiusheng resigned as chairman and CEO for personal reasons, and Lin Xiaohai was appointed as CEO and general manager, effective June 1, 2024. The century-old company faces declining revenue and increased competition, and Lin's appointment is expected to accelerate its digital transformation."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2024-05-15"
language: "en"
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# Returning to the FMCG Track, Former Alibaba Executive Lin Xiaohai Takes Over as CEO of Shanghai Jahwa

> Shanghai Jahwa United Co., Ltd. recently announced that Pan Qiusheng resigned as chairman and CEO for personal reasons, and Lin Xiaohai was appointed as CEO and general manager, effective June 1, 2024. The century-old company faces declining revenue and increased competition, and Lin's appointment is expected to accelerate its digital transformation.

Recently, Shanghai Jahwa United Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shanghai Jahwa") held the 18th meeting of the 8th Board of Directors and issued the latest personnel appointment announcement: **Pan Qiusheng resigned as the company's chairman and CEO for personal reasons. Lin Xiaohai was appointed as the company's CEO and general manager, effective June 1, 2024;** At the same time, Lin Xiaohai was nominated as a candidate for director of the 8th Board of Directors, which will be submitted to the company's shareholders' meeting for review.

**A Century-Old Enterprise in Trouble**
In China's daily chemical industry, Shanghai Jahwa was once an undisputed leader. **As a century-old enterprise with a history of 126 years, it is now also in trouble.**

According to its annual report, Shanghai Jahwa achieved revenue of 6.598 billion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year decrease of 7.16%. In 2022, revenue was 7.1 billion yuan, and in 2021, it was 7.646 billion yuan, showing a trend of declining revenue year by year.

In the first quarter of 2024, Shanghai Jahwa achieved operating revenue of 1.905 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 3.76%, and net profit attributable to the parent company of 256 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11.18%.

As the first listed local beauty and daily chemical company, Shanghai Jahwa has always been a leader in the industry, with products including well-known brands such as Liushen, Herborist, Dr. Yu, Maxam, Qi Chu, and GF.

It is such a company with such a long history and rich brand matrix that **has seen its performance decline in recent years, being overtaken by Proya and losing the top position in domestic beauty products.**

Over the past decade, its development has been faltering, largely due to unstable management. Since 2012, three general managers have been replaced, each with a term of 2-3 years, directly affecting the company's lack of unified leadership and clear direction during critical periods.

**The End of the "Pan Qiusheng Era"**
The board of directors of Shanghai Jahwa expressed gratitude, saying, "During Mr. Pan Qiusheng's tenure, he promoted organizational structure reform, brand building, and ESG (environmental, social, and governance) sustainable development."

Pan Qiusheng (Image source: Shanghai Jahwa official WeChat)

On April 22, 2020, Pan Qiusheng took over from Zhang Dongfang as CEO and general manager of Shanghai Jahwa, and was nominated as a director candidate. At that time, Shanghai Jahwa was under performance pressure. According to the first quarter report of 2020, under the influence of multiple factors such as the epidemic, the company's revenue and net profit both declined, reaching a low point in nearly three years.

**At that time, after the announcement of Pan Qiusheng's appointment, Shanghai Jahwa's stock price hit the daily limit for two consecutive trading days, and then continued to rise, with the stock price increasing by more than 60% in less than two months.** It can be seen that the capital market at that time was also very optimistic about Pan Qiusheng, who had a background in the beauty industry.

Since taking office, he has carried out drastic reforms in all aspects of the company. He adjusted the company's e-commerce team, reducing the average age of the team from 33 to 28, encouraged cross-departmental communication within the company, and promoted the free flow of information.

At his first shareholders' meeting, he stated that the company would not carry out "campaign-style" adjustments to its organizational structure, but would adopt a "gradual" approach, "breaking down departmental walls, adopting a culture of meritocracy, giving opportunities to better-performing colleagues, and those who perform poorly will leave."

In the first year after his joining - 2021 - the company briefly experienced performance growth, with revenue reaching 7.646 billion yuan, but the good times did not last long, and revenue declined for the next two consecutive years. Its market value even fell below that of later-rising domestic beauty companies such as Proya, Shangmei Co., Ltd., and Betaine.

According to its 2023 financial report analysis, the company reflected on the main reasons for its lagging performance in the past period. Last year, it made major adjustments in several aspects, including corporate strategy, organizational structure, marketing innovation, talent pipeline, and sustainable development. It is still in the adjustment stage, and the decline in performance is mainly due to digesting the pain of strategic transformation and legacy issues.

**2023 was the year of the most in-depth adjustment of Shanghai Jahwa during Pan Qiusheng's tenure.**

At the end of 2023, under Pan Qiusheng's leadership, Shanghai Jahwa implemented an organizational structure adjustment based on business divisions, establishing the Beauty and Skincare & Mother and Baby Division, the Personal Care and Home Care Division, and the Overseas Division. The financial report showed that during the adjustment process, the middle and senior management team was also replaced, with 346 people newly recruited or replaced throughout the year, accelerating the closed-loop decision-making process for categories and the speed of response to the market.

In addition to organizational structure adjustments, in 2023 Shanghai Jahwa determined a strategy to focus on categories with high gross margins, high growth, and high brand premium in the coming years, gradually shifting to a strategy of increasing the proportion of beauty business and enhancing the profitability of personal care business through differentiation. It also closed, suspended, or transformed some businesses with low gross margins, low contribution, and low growth.

Industry management expert Bai Yunhu said, **"Since 'Ping An' took control of Shanghai Jahwa, three chairmen have been replaced in ten years, leading to unstable corporate strategy and organization, and missing the 'golden decade' of local cosmetics development."** During this period, other domestic beauty companies kept pace with the times, grasped the trends of channel changes and user upgrading, and achieved rapid development, quickly surpassing Shanghai Jahwa.

Although the "Pan Qiusheng era" of Shanghai Jahwa has come to an end, the "Ping An dynasty" of Shanghai Jahwa will continue.

**Ushering in the "Lin Xiaohai Era"**
Lin Xiaohai was born in 1971 and graduated from South China University of Technology. He has accumulated 30 years of rich offline and online management experience in China's FMCG industry.

From 1995 to 2016, he served at Procter & Gamble, responsible for oral care and maternal and infant care categories, key account teams, channel management, e-commerce teams, and marketing departments. Among these, from 2014 to 2016, he served as President of Marketing for Greater China at Procter & Gamble (China) Marketing Co., Ltd.

From 2016 to 2020, he served as Vice President of Alibaba Group Holding Limited and General Manager of the Retail Connect Business Unit; from 2020 to March 2024, he served as Executive Director and CEO of Sun Art Retail Group Limited.

It is worth noting that on the evening of March 26, 2024, Sun Art Retail announced on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that Lin Xiaohai resigned as Executive Director and CEO of Sun Art Retail and was transferred back to Alibaba Group for other assignments.

It can be seen that **in less than two months, Lin Xiaohai did not choose to return to Alibaba, but instead returned to the FMCG track and took over Shanghai Jahwa.**

According to Shanghai Jahwa's response, Lin Xiaohai has many years of management experience in multinational consumer goods companies and China's FMCG industry, is good at driving transformation and change, and has strong strategic leadership and execution. It is believed that under Lin Xiaohai's leadership, Shanghai Jahwa will actively embrace new changes in retail consumption trends, accelerate the pace of reform and transformation, and the whole company will work together, strive for excellence, and climb new heights. **Alibaba is one of Shanghai Jahwa's important partners, but this appointment is unrelated to cooperation.**

**Lin Xiaohai's joining may mean the acceleration of Shanghai Jahwa's digital reform.** For a long time, Shanghai Jahwa's channel structure has been biased towards offline. Last year, its offline retail business, which accounted for 85% of its personal care business, was greatly impacted by the closure of chain businesses such as Carrefour.

Many outsiders speculate that recently, his former employer Alibaba's Retail Connect was discontinued, and Sun Art Retail was rumored to be sold. For Lin Xiaohai, who once served as General Manager of Retail Connect and CEO of Sun Art Retail, it is questionable whether he chose to leave because there was no "place for him" at Alibaba.

In the view of New Distribution, Lin Xiaohai, who comes from the "P&G system" and "Alibaba system," not only has a background in the daily chemical industry and keen insight into new retail trends, but also has practical experience in internet new retail.

**If Shanghai Jahwa and Lin Xiaohai "go both ways," it is believed that he will also steer the old ship and create a Shanghai Jahwa that belongs to the "Lin Xiaohai era."**

**Recommended Reading**


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