Haier Group Founder Ranks 22nd, Applauded for Management Innovation
Haier, the world's leading home appliance provider, today announced that the company’s Chairman and CEO, Zhang Ruimin, has been named in Fortune magazines list of the “The World’s 50 Greatest Leaders” published earlier today.
Mr. Zhang ranks 22nd on the ranking of leading figures from business, politics and society who Fortune credits with “energizing their followers and making the world better.” Other honorees include Pope Francis, Angela Merkel, and Warren Buffet.
In its citation, Fortune credited Zhang Ruimin’s “radical management innovations” with transforming Haier into the world's largest appliance brand, noting that Zhang “groups employees into small, self-managing teams that choose their own managers, compete for internal talent, and can earn big bonuses.”
Under Zhang Ruimin’s leadership Haier has created a management system that puts customer needs at the heart of the product development process. Haier encourages staff to track evolving market trends and form autonomous project teams to address emerging opportunities. Each new project or market opportunity leads to the formation of a dedicated small team of workers functioning as an independent company, what Haier calls a ZZJYT. The system is designed to foster internal entrepreneurship and innovation, and to make Haier a more efficient and nimble company.
