Niu Gensheng: Resigned from Mengniu’s President

The famous domestic diary enterprise in China Mengniu went through a great change at the end of August. Its founder and president Niu Gensheng resigned from his post, two months after the investment into Mengniu from the state-owned enterprise – China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation (COFCO).

Yu Xubo, President of COFCO, will be the next president of Mengniu.

Niu, born in January 1958, has been in the dairy industry for more than 27 years. In 1999, Niu founded Mengniu Dairy Group, with the headquarters set up in Inner Mongolia. Under his leadership, Mengniu quickly developed into one of the top dairy enterprises in China.

After the melamine event in September 2008, the fame of Mengniu and Niu Gensheng was seriously damaged. Mengniu was trapped into the trouble of capital. Despite that Niu declared that Mengniu would not be sold to the foreign investors to “keep the Chinese domestic brand”. In June 2009, the state-owned COFCO invested 6.1 billion HK dollars in Mengniu, releasing it from the trouble of capital chain.

After resignation from the president, Niu will take the post of Board Chairman of Mengniu, supervising the operation of the company. It is said that Niu can spend more energy in the development of “Laoniu Fund” which was founded by him in 2005. In the future, Niu will turn up in front of the media as a philanthropist more than an entrepreneur.