Rearranging commanders and filling vacancies, is the second startup of China United Life entering an "accelerated phase"?

Ask AI · How can Wu Ganping’s cross-disciplinary experience empower Guolian Life Insurance’s “Second Entrepreneurship”?

Produced by | China Interview Network

Reviewed by | Li Xiaoyan

After completing a major capital increase and share expansion in 2025, Guolian Life Insurance has entered a critical stage of development and transformation, and a deep overhaul centered on “Second Entrepreneurship” has officially begun. Recently, adjustments to the company’s core executive leadership have accelerated: the changeover of the Party Committee secretary, the market-based selection and hiring of a general manager, and the appointment of a vice general manager for the bank-insurance channel have all been implemented in succession. Alongside optimized organizational structure and clearer strategic planning, Guolian Life Insurance is rebuilding its development landscape in a new posture, moving steadily forward on the path of strengthening operational foundations and enhancing core competitiveness. At the same time, it also directly faces challenges such as personnel fluctuations in past development, and is working hard to write a new chapter of high-quality development.

In enterprise development, what matters most is people. The stability and professionalism of the executive leadership team are key to enabling an insurance company to move steadily toward long-term success. The orderly management adjustments recently at Guolian Life Insurance are an important measure to solidify the leadership core for “Second Entrepreneurship.” On March 24, Qian Fang, a member of the Party Committee of Guolian Group and vice president, no longer serves concurrently in relevant roles at Guolian Life Insurance; instead, she continues to oversee the company at the Group level, creating room for Guolian Life Insurance’s management to operate in a specialized, full-time manner. Meanwhile, Wu Ganping officially took office as secretary of Guolian Life Insurance’s Party Committee, becoming the core candidate for the company’s new “top leader.”

These leadership adjustments were not made in haste; they were already well prepared. As early as January 26, 2026, at Guolian Life Insurance’s first extraordinary general meeting of shareholders in 2026, a proposal appointing Wu Ganping as a director of the company was approved, clearing procedural obstacles for him to perform his duties. On January 31, Wu Ganping, in his capacity as secretary of Guolian Life Insurance’s Party Committee, attended a business cooperation meeting, quickly entering his working role. Judging from his background, Wu Ganping comes from Guolian Group, the company’s major shareholder, and has more than 30 years of experience in the financial, finance, risk control, audit, and asset management fields. He previously held senior posts at multiple core subsidiary companies under Guolian Group, and is well versed in the logic of operating and managing financial enterprises and the essentials of risk governance. His rich cross-disciplinary experience and the Group’s resource synergy advantages will provide solid management support for Guolian Life Insurance’s “Second Entrepreneurship.”

In line with industry practices and the company’s procedures, after completing regulatory approvals, Wu Ganping is expected to formally assume the chairmanship position and fill the company’s core executive leadership gap. This adjustment both continues the major shareholder’s strategic control over the company’s development and achieves a professional iteration of the management team, laying a foundation for Guolian Life Insurance to get rid of the impact of past personnel fluctuations and stabilize the overall development situation.

If the appointment of the chairperson is the settling of the “captain’s seat,” then the market-based selection and hiring of the general manager and the vice general manager for the bank-insurance channel are the key strategic moves for Guolian Life Insurance to attract talent and select “capable generals.” Faced with the vacancy of the general manager position and the situation that the term of the interim responsible party is about to expire, for the first time Guolian Life Insurance issued an “invitation to heroes” to the market. It openly recruited one general manager and one vice general manager responsible for the bank-insurance channel, drawing in industry elites with high standards and strict requirements, demonstrating its market-oriented and professional approach to employing people.

This recruitment sets clear and stringent requirements for appointment qualifications: the general manager must have more than 10 years of experience in the insurance industry and more than 5 years of experience serving as an executive in the life insurance head office, with deep industry immersion and the ability to understand operations and manage well. The vice general manager for the bank-insurance channel must have more than 10 years of experience in the financial industry and more than 5 years of experience in core management positions in the bank-insurance line at a life insurance company, focusing on in-depth cultivation of channel business. This move not only responds to Guolian Group’s strategic requirement of “strengthening the enterprise through talent,” but is also a proactive choice for Guolian Life Insurance to break through talent bottlenecks and optimize the structure of the executive team.

Looking back, Guolian Life Insurance has previously faced the problem of frequent changes in the general manager position. Zhao Xuejun, the general manager approved in January 2025, resigned for personal reasons less than a year into his term, and afterward an interim responsible party served in the role, to a certain extent affecting the continuity of operational decisions. Through this market-based open recruitment, the company breaks internal limitations on employing people, attracts external talent with abundant industry experience, and can both quickly fill management shortcomings and introduce advanced operating concepts, injecting fresh vitality into the team. At the same time, the company also promotes the cultivation of internal cadres and organizational optimization, coordinating the use of cadres across different age groups, improving market-based incentive and constraint mechanisms, and building a talent pipeline across the board, to gather strong human resources support for “Second Entrepreneurship.”

Financial backing and strategic guidance are the dual guarantees for Guolian Life Insurance to advance “Second Entrepreneurship.” In 2025, the company completed a capital increase of RMB 3 billion, raising registered capital from RMB 2.1 billion to RMB 4.659 billion significantly, achieving a qualitative leap in capital strength. Later that year, the company also approved a proposal to issue capital replenishment bonds, further strengthening its capital strength and providing ample funding support for business expansion and risk control. With strong capital backing, Guolian Group has clearly stated that the company is in a key period of “Second Entrepreneurship,” and needs to reshape its development philosophy and reconstruct its growth logic, pointing the way forward for the company’s development.

In 2026, the first year of Guolian Life Insurance’s “15th Five-Year Plan” (2026–2030), the company officially released its annual development targets and seven major key tasks. It plans comprehensively around strategic implementation, value enhancement, asset-liability synergy, digital intelligence empowerment, cost control, risk prevention and control, and Party-building team development, establishing a new positioning as a “comprehensive life finance service provider,” and opening a new journey of integrated and coordinated development. After the newly appointed Party Committee secretary, Wu Ganping, took office, he quickly initiated work to optimize the organizational structure. Through measures such as merging departments, integrating functions, establishing new departments, and integrating institutions, the company is advancing “streamlining and strengthening” to reduce costs and improve efficiency.

Specifically, the company will merge the Party Committee Office with the Human Resources Department; merge the Board of Directors Office with the Strategy and Development Department; and merge the underwriting and claims and customer service functions, strengthening departmental collaboration and effectiveness. It will also establish a new digital intelligence empowerment department to seize opportunities for digital transformation. Additionally, it will integrate the backend departments of the Wuxi branch with headquarters resources, reducing management layers and improving operational efficiency. A series of organizational adjustments, at their core, are about breaking down departmental barriers, optimizing resource allocation, abandoning an extensive development model, and shifting to more refined operations. This not only aligns with the overall trend of high-quality development in the insurance industry, but also directly addresses pain points in the company’s past operations—insufficient efficiency and lack of smooth coordination—highlighting the firm determination to drive reforms and overcome difficulties.

From an operational performance perspective, in recent years Guolian Life Insurance has gradually emerged from its loss-making predicament and achieved a continuous rise in the scale of profitability, laying a solid operational foundation for “Second Entrepreneurship.” Data shows that from 2020 to 2025, the company’s insurance business revenue has maintained an overall growth trend. Net profit turned from -RMB 0.058 billion in 2020 to RMB 0.087 billion in 2024 and RMB 0.509 billion in 2025. It has achieved steady profitability for two consecutive years, and the quality and efficiency of operations have improved significantly. Currently, investment returns remain an important support for the company’s performance. As cost reduction and efficiency improvement, structural reforms, and business structure optimization are implemented, the company will gradually build a more balanced and more sustainable profitability model.

Objectively speaking, Guolian Life Insurance still faces certain challenges in its development: frequent changes in key personnel in the past lead to insufficient continuity in operational strategies; the company’s insurance business revenue has experienced phased fluctuations, and its profit structure still needs further optimization; and industry competition is growing increasingly fierce, meaning the competitiveness of core channels such as bank insurance and direct individual insurance still needs to be strengthened. However, these issues are all phased difficulties encountered during the process of enterprise transformation and development. With management leadership progressively settled, strategic planning clearly implemented, and reforms continually deepened, they are expected to be effectively resolved.

Now, the call for “Second Entrepreneurship” at Guolian Life Insurance has already been sounded. Adjusting leadership and selecting “capable generals” has entered an accelerated sprint stage. Organizational structure reform is being advanced steadily, and capital strength, talent teams, and strategic planning are comprehensively upgraded. With full support from its major shareholder, Guolian Group, the company takes Party-building as guidance, risk compliance as the bottom line, and value creation as the core. Through refined management, digital empowerment, and market-oriented operations, it continues to enhance its comprehensive service capability and market competitiveness.

Looking ahead, as the entire core executive leadership team is fully in place and reform measures are fully implemented, Guolian Life Insurance will completely get rid of the pains of development and enter the fast track of high-quality development. Amid the wave of transformation in the insurance industry, with an entirely new posture, it will write a new chapter of development for itself, creating greater value for customers, shareholders, and society.