Recently, ant group disclosed on its official website that Ms. yangxiaolei and MS. shimeilun were newly hired as independent directors. The proportion of independent directors in the board of directors rose to 50%, and the proportion of female directors exceeded one third. Meanwhile, Jiang Fang no longer serves as a non-executive director of ant group, and Huzuliu, founder of Chunhua capital, no longer serves as an independent director of ant group.
According to public information, yangxiaolei is currently an independent director of Hengfeng Bank Co., Ltd. she was a lawyer of CITIC law firm, a partner of Jingtian Gongcheng law firm and a partner of Jindu law firm under China International Trust and Investment Corporation (now CITIC Group).
Smith Meilun is currently the chairman of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Co., Ltd. and used to be the vice chairman of China Securities Regulatory Commission. He is in charge of listing and financing supervision. He is known as the "Iron Lady" in the securities industry. His posts also include the chairman of the Hong Kong Financial Development Council, the director and non-executive vice chairman of Hong Kong HSBC Bank Co., Ltd., the independent non-executive director of Chinatelecom and Unilever, and the independent director of Baosteel.
After this adjustment, the board of directors of ant group presents a "2+2+4" structure: two executive directors, jingxiandong (Chairman) and nixingjun; Two non-executive directors / shareholder representative directors, caichongxin and Cheng Li respectively; Four independent directors, namely haoquan, huangyiping, yangxiaolei and shimeilun. Among them, the proportion of independent directors is 50%, haoquan, yangxiaolei and shimeilun are all women, and the proportion of female directors exceeds 1/3.
According to the analysis of insiders, independent directors are an important part of the modern corporate governance system, which is crucial to the transparency of the board of directors' governance and the effectiveness of performing their duties. At present, ant's four independent directors include well-known economists, senior financial experts, senior legal experts and people with rich international regulatory experience. Such a combination can ensure the professionalism of the board of directors; 50% of the members of the board of directors are independent directors, which is also conducive to the more independent performance of duties by the board of directors, which is conducive to the long-term, healthy and stable development of ant group.
In addition, the increase in the proportion of female directors is also conducive to enhancing the diversity of the board of directors and providing different views and perspectives for decision-making. Deloitte has issued a report that shows that at present, the average proportion of female directors in the world is 20%.
It is worth noting that ant's board of directors also includes two senior CTOs, Ni Xingjun, chief technology officer of ant group, and Cheng Li, chief technology officer of Alibaba. From the technical concentration of the board of directors, we can see the importance the company attaches to technology development.
It is reported that in order to meet the requirements of future financial supervision, ant group has taken various measures to improve its corporate governance and give play to the key role of corporate governance in risk prevention. These measures include continuously strengthening the role of the board of directors, expanding the scope of directors' performance, adding a conflict of Interest Committee, a risk management and Consumer Protection Committee, a privacy protection and data security committee, etc. in the future, we will further increase the number of independent directors and gradually achieve more than half of the independent directors in the board of directors.
Former vice chairman of China Securities Regulatory Commission shimeilun joined Chunhua capital group and its founder Huzuliu no longer served as
The most remarkable thing about this major adjustment of the independent director is that shimeilun, former vice chairman of the CSRC, joined the company. Shimeilun has many Titles: "Iron Lady", "super working Queen" and "the first foreign aid" of the CSRC. In Hong Kong, some media called her "Iron Lady" because when she was the vice chairman of the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission, she said nothing about the supervision of the securities market.
People.com reported that shimeilun, who was born in Shanghai in 1950 and grew up in Hong Kong, has worked in the Securities Regulatory Commission of Hong Kong since 1991. She has successively served as assistant director, senior director and executive director. In 1998, she was promoted to vice chairman and chief operating officer of the Securities Regulatory Commission. In the Securities Regulatory Commission, she was in charge of the corporate finance department and financial administration affairs, with considerable authority. Her former boss, shenliantao, chairman of the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission, commented on shimeilun as "an impartial, fair and trustworthy approach and a model for the staff of the Securities Regulatory Commission."
Hong Kong media had also evaluated her as "the most feared working queen of counterfeiting companies", because smellen Smith promoted the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission and the stock exchange to jointly crack down on Hong Kong stock market blackhouses in the 1990s. At one time, someone threatened her life, and she was not afraid.
Shimeilun has a deep relationship with the capital market in mainland China. He was vice chairman of the CSRC from 2001 to 2004. Shimeilun's appointment as the vice chairman of the CSRC makes her the first person in the history of new China to serve as the vice chairman of the CSRC and a deputy ministerial official of the central government as a professional from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.
In 2003, in an exclusive interview with CCTV, shimeilun recalled that Zhu Rongji, then Premier of the State Council, sent her a job invitation through friends. He was both surprised and flattered. She felt that this was a very, very rare opportunity. She also thanked the national leaders for their trust in her and gave her such an important task and the opportunity to participate in the reform and opening up.
After joining the China Securities Regulatory Commission in 2001, shimeilun once supported strong supervision, and the stock market dark scenes were exposed one after another. The Yian technology case, the Zhongke entrepreneurship case, the Boshi fund case and the Yinguangxia case were investigated. The regulatory concepts, policies and means of China's stock market are increasingly showing the characteristics of being in line with international norms. Statistics show that in the nine months after shimeilun took office, the CSRC issued more than 40 laws, regulations and punishment decisions, covering listed companies, securities companies, Securities Audit institutions, securities consulting industry, etc. Some media called Smith Meilun "the woman who set off the storm of China's stock market supervision".
2001 is also known as the year of China's stock market supervision. In September2004, the State Council removed shimeilun from the post of vice chairman of the Securities Regulatory Commission. In the face of all kinds of speculation, shimeilun replied, "I have done everything I should do. My task has been completed and I need to go home."
After stepping down as the vice chairman of the CSRC in September, 2004, smellen returned to Hong Kong and served as the chairman of the Hong Kong Monetary Development Council from January 2013 to July 2018. She is now the chairman of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited and a non official member of the Executive Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
In addition, Huzuliu, founder of Chunhua capital group, no longer serves as an independent director of ant group. Previously, in 2020, it was deeply involved in the "sale of ant equity" storm. At that time, we media articles accused Huzuliu, the founder and chairman of Chunhua capital, of "selling" ant equity at a low price. Chunhua capital later said that the text circulated on the Internet contained a large amount of false information and constituted slander. Huzuliu also said that he could not comment publicly because several companies were about to be listed.