Zheshang Bank's management reshuffle as strategic focus enters deep waters
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At the end of the year and the beginning of the next, Zhejiang Commercial Bank, headquartered in Hangzhou, underwent a major executive reshuffle.
The nominated chairman Chen Haiqiang officially stepped down as president; Lü Linhua took over as president and was nominated as a candidate for executive director.
Vice president Lin Jingran, assistant presidents Wang Chaoming and Hou Bo all resigned simultaneously; assistants Zhou Weixin and Pan Huafeng were promoted to vice presidents.
Judging from the timing, this reshuffle appears to be the final step in the previous "three chiefs" adjustment at Zhejiang Commercial Bank:
In 2025, the original chairman Lu Jianqiang will retire due to age, former president Chen Haiqiang will be promoted to party secretary and nominated chairman;
In the same year, the supervisory board will be abolished. Former chief supervisor Guo Dingfang, after stepping down, will transfer to become the party secretary and chairman of Zhejiang Province Guarantee Group.
Personnel changes precede strategy. This series of moves signifies not only a generational change but also an organizational restructuring as Zhejiang Commercial Bank’s "deep cultivation in Zhejiang" strategy moves into deep water.
Executive Reshuffle
As the only Zhejiang-based national joint-stock commercial bank, Zhejiang Commercial Bank launched a three-year “Deep Cultivation in Zhejiang” campaign in 2022 and placed it at the top of its strategic pyramid.
Now, Zhejiang Commercial Bank is facing a critical juncture in its strategic transition—
2025 marks both the conclusion of the first round of “Deep Cultivation in Zhejiang” and the start of a new strategic cycle from 2025 to 2027.
At this key moment, establishing a management team to match the strategic upgrade may be at the core of this personnel adjustment.
On one hand, it means streamlining positions and improving efficiency.
The most visible change is the “arithmetic” of executive positions. After abolishing the supervisory board, the bank went further by canceling the position of assistant president at the head and branch offices, streamlining the executive lineup from the traditional “one chief, three vice presidents, four assistants” to “one chief, four vice presidents.”
On the trimming of redundant positions, a Zhejiang Commercial Bank spokesperson stated: “It’s to implement the provincial party committee and government’s deployment, strengthen the party's overall leadership in financial work, streamline the management system for cadres, and is also a systematic arrangement in line with strategic development.”
On the other hand, it means talent selection aligned with strategy.
Zhejiang Commercial Bank has detailed the core achievements of “Deep Cultivation in Zhejiang” in its annual report—including deepening cooperation with key clients, promoting the corporate financial advisor system, and building a county-level integrated financial ecosystem—all of which are strengths of its new management team.
Nominated chairman Chen Haiqiang is a typical “grown within the system” cadre, and before moving into the core management team, he held key positions in the bank’s Ningbo and Hangzhou branches, giving him heightened sensitivity to Zhejiang’s economic pulse. His leadership ensures strategic continuity.
Nominated president Lü Linhua is the most noteworthy “external recruit” in this reshuffle, whose experience combines financial regulation and local hands-on practice. He worked long-term in Zhejiang’s financial regulatory system and participated deep in provincial rural credit reform, serving as vice president of Zhejiang Rural Commercial United Bank.
In Zhejiang, the rural commercial bank system has the densest physical network and greatest penetration capability in the province, covering 82 county-level rural commercial banks.
For Zhejiang Commercial Bank, which is trying to find growth through “county-level integrated financial ecology,” Lü Linhua’s addition is like bringing in a set of mature “capillary” business playbooks.
An industry insider at a large bank noted that those from the rural credit system may have more experience in how to penetrate through branch networks and turn county-level business into replicable business units.
The insider further added, “This is because to scale county business, what counts isn’t just the frontline client managers, but an entire playbook: regulatory recognition, product standardization, risk control models, operations platform, and assessment mechanisms.”
Beyond the top two leaders, the division of labor among vice presidents is also highly targeted.
The top-ranked vice president, Jing Feng, is a U.S. certified public accountant. As banks emphasize “refined management,” his financial management background combined with his hands-on experience in Hangzhou branch can further boost retail business development.
The second-ranked vice president, Luo Feng, also serves as board secretary. His deep experience in capital market communication and supply chain finance can help Zhejiang Commercial Bank distinguish itself in Zhejiang—the “provinces of private economies”—through supply chain finance.
New vice presidents Zhou Weixin and Pan Huafeng fill the gaps of government-business coordination and risk control.
Zhou Weixin once served as a deputy mayor, and his unique government background gives him stronger coordination efficiency when dealing with major provincial projects like Zhejiang’s “Thousand Items, Trillion Yuan” initiatives.
Pan Huafeng, long rooted in Ningbo and other risk-control frontlines, can better grasp the risk characteristics of local manufacturing clients.
With this, Zhejiang Commercial Bank has formed a “young and vigorous” team with an average age under 50.
The essence of this configuration is to solve one key problem: how to defend and expand its home-ground advantage in Zhejiang’s fiercely competitive financial market.
The “Deep Cultivation” Defense Battle
Behind the personnel reshuffle lies a reality Zhejiang Commercial Bank must face—its home-ground advantage is being eroded.
Despite launching the “Deep Cultivation in Zhejiang” strategy in 2022, financial data shows that this “defense battle” is far from easy.
Among competitors in Zhejiang’s local market, Zhejiang Commercial Bank faces dual pressure from city commercial banks and rural commercial banks.
By the third quarter of 2025, among the four listed banks in Zhejiang, Zhejiang Commercial Bank’s asset size ranks second, just behind Ningbo Bank.
Analyzing multiple operating indicators, the bank’s growth momentum in recent years has been high: the compound annual growth rates for revenue, net profit, assets, and return on equity over the past three years (as of 2024) were 24.19%, 20.07%, 45.43%, and -8.14% respectively.
These figures, while relatively strong among listed banks, still show a gap compared to local peers in Zhejiang province.
In recent years, Ningbo Bank has led in profitability thanks to market-oriented mechanisms and deep penetration among small micro-enterprises. In the first three quarters of 2025, net profit attributable to parent company exceeded Zhejiang Commercial Bank by 10.777 billion yuan.
Hangzhou Bank is pursuing a “small but beautiful” premium route. Though its asset size is slightly less than Zhejiang Commercial Bank’s, its net profit for the first three quarters exceeded Zhejiang Commercial Bank by 4.217 billion yuan, and its non-performing loan rate has long remained at a healthy level.
Rural commercial bank representative Ruifeng Bank, though its asset size is less than one-tenth of Zhejiang Commercial Bank’s, has high penetration in county areas such as Shaoxing, and is “familiar with people, places, and policies,” making it a future competitor for Zhejiang Commercial Bank’s county-level expansion.
Concerns in the numbers stem not just from competitors, but also from within.
From 2021 to the first half of 2025, Zhejiang Commercial Bank’s year-on-year revenue growth in the Yangtze River Delta was 24.47%, 3.56%, 4.08%, 12.20%, and -0.36% respectively.
Recent negative growth could be a dangerous sign: in its core territory, Zhejiang Commercial Bank’s business may have hit a ceiling, or lost pricing power in a price war.
Facing this imminent crisis, the new leadership team’s prescription is “deep sinking.”
At the end of 2025, Chen Haiqiang emphasized once again at a special party committee meeting the need to “deeply cultivate Zhejiang,” and in the new round of strategy established a general guideline of “three doublings, ten major measures,” aiming to counter growth pressure through mechanism innovation.
For example: actively integrating into county-level financial ecosystems, strengthening government-bank connections, fully developing market-potential scenarios based on unique local industries, deepening the main channel of financial services, and supporting common prosperity in county industries.
Implementing a differentiated “one-branch-one-policy” management approach, tilting credit scale and authorization to provincial branches, breaking the limitation of “one-size-fits-all” among national banks, and giving local branches more flexibility.
By mid-2025, the balance of inclusive loans in Zhejiang province accounted for over 40% of the bank’s total, with more than 15,000 new individual business clients, exceeding the annual target ahead of schedule.
Provincial deposits totaled 610.2 billion yuan, up 8.13%; total financing services reached 1,119 billion yuan, an increase of 98.5 billion yuan from the start of the year, higher than last year’s full-year increment, showing initial results of the strategic adjustment.
Now, the personnel reshuffle is complete, but the breakthrough in growth is just beginning.
An analyst from a banking research institute pointed out that in the future, Lü Linhua may face the challenge of how to transplant the “penetration experience” accumulated in the rural credit system to a national joint-stock commercial bank.
The analyst added, “The rural commercial system emphasizes ‘flexibility’ and ‘local characteristics,’ while listed banks emphasize ‘standardization,’ ‘uniformity,’ and strict corporate governance. This requires sophisticated management wisdom, or there will be internal management friction.”
In the future, whether Zhejiang Commercial Bank can keep its national bank brand advantage while “flying close to the ground” may determine the ultimate value of its new round of “Deep Cultivation in Zhejiang” strategy.
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