SAIC Motor
Leadership History
2 leaders · 2024 to present
Wang Xiaoqiu is the CEO of SAIC Motor, in the role since 2024.
| Name | Role | From | To | Years in role |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wang Xiaoqiu | Chairman of the Board | 2024 | Present | 2 |
| Jia Jianxu | President & Director | 2024 | Present | 2 |
SAIC Motor is Shanghai's state-owned automaker and one of the biggest car companies in China. It is controlled by Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (Group), which reports to the Shanghai SASAC. It sells cars under its own brands and through joint ventures with Volkswagen and General Motors. In 2025 it sold 4.507 million vehicles wholesale and ranked 125th on the 2026 Fortune Global 500. The company is headquartered in Shanghai, China.
SAIC makes money mainly by building and selling vehicles. Revenue is consolidated from its own brands (MG, Roewe, IM Motors, Maxus/LDV), from consolidated joint ventures, and from parts maker HASCO (Huayu Automotive Systems). It also earns investment income from its 50:50 joint ventures with Volkswagen and GM, interest income from auto finance arms such as SAIC-GMAC and SAIC Finance, and fees from logistics unit Anji Logistics. Own-brand sales reached 2.928 million units in 2025, up 21.6%, as the group shifted away from reliance on foreign partners.
Chairman of the Board
2024 – Present
2 years (current)
Wang orchestrated SAIC's massive, highly aggressive pivot toward New Energy Vehicles (NEVs), securing critical joint ventures with Volkswagen and General Motors to dominate the Chinese market.
As President, he successfully managed the incredibly complex global rollout of the MG brand, making SAIC the absolute largest exporter of Chinese-made automobiles in the world.
President & Director
2024 – Present
2 years (current)
Jia drove the massive turnaround of SAIC-Volkswagen, aggressively revamping the aging product lineup to fiercely compete against domestic EV upstarts like BYD and NIO.
Appointed as President in 2024, he oversees the company's severe cost-cutting initiatives and attempts to navigate the massive, impending European tariffs on Chinese EVs.
SAIC faces a domestic price war, led by BYD and other Chinese EV makers, that has squeezed its legacy joint ventures. Wholesale shipments from SAIC-GM and SAIC-GM-Wuling fell from 975,000 in the first half of 2025 to 865,000 in the first half of 2026, according to GM filings. It also faces EU countervailing duties on Chinese-built EVs, which hit MG hardest, and must make premium brand IM Motors profitable. Net profit fell 14.4% in the first half of 2026 to ~$716 million (CN¥5.15 billion).
Wang Xiaoqiu was appointed Chairman of SAIC Motor in July 2024, succeeding Chen Hong after serving as President of SAIC Motor since 2019.
A seasoned automotive engineer who joined SAIC in 1988, Wang Xiaoqiu played key leadership roles across the group, serving as General Manager of SAIC-Volkswagen, General Manager of SAIC Passenger Vehicle, and head of the Roewe and MG development programs.
Chen Hong served as Chairman of SAIC Motor for a decade (2014 to 2024), overseeing the historic expansion of SAIC into the Fortune Global 100, the revitalization of MG into an export powerhouse, the launch of Wuling Mini EV, and the solid-state battery push.
Jia Jianxu was appointed President of SAIC Motor in July 2024. A rising executive with international supply chain and joint venture pedigree, Jia previously served as General Manager of SAIC-Volkswagen and President of Yanfeng Automotive Interiors.
As a major Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE), SAIC is governed by a Board of Directors, a Board of Supervisors, and the Senior Management Committee, operating under the dual guidance of commercial market performance and the Shanghai State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC).
Wang Xiaoqiu prioritized accelerating independent brand development (MG, Roewe, IM), speeding up solid-state battery industrialization, expanding overseas localized manufacturing to neutralize tariffs, and defending profitability amid domestic price wars.
During the severe two-month Shanghai pandemic lockdowns in spring 2022, SAIC leadership implemented "closed-loop" factory production systems, housing thousands of workers inside assembly plants to maintain critical vehicle and battery production lines.
In 2021, Chairman Chen Hong made headlines when asked if SAIC would adopt Huawei's autonomous driving software, famously responding that SAIC could not let an external supplier control its "soul" (autonomous driving and digital brains), insisting on proprietary software control via Z-One.
SAIC's subsidiary Yanfeng Automotive Interiors is one of the world's largest automotive interior suppliers, serving as an executive training ground that regularly supplies top operational talent to SAIC's corporate headquarters.
Leadership of joint ventures alternates between Chinese and foreign partners: the Chairman of SAIC-VW is typically appointed by SAIC, while the General Manager or technical leads rotate with Volkswagen and GM executives.
SAIC executive leaders have received the China National Quality Award, Shanghai Model Worker distinctions, and been featured on Fortune China's Most Influential Business Leaders lists.
Through internal training academies, partnerships with Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Tongji University, and international engineering secondments in the UK and Germany, SAIC cultivates continuous generations of automotive engineers.
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