- Push-out Score determined
- After about a year and a half in the position
- Praise and thanks for Lu
- Xiaodi Hou taking over
- Lu said 85 words
(exechange) — San Diego, California, March 3, 2022 — Cheng Lu, chief executive of TuSimple, leaves. As announced by TuSimple Holdings Inc. in a news release and in a regulatory filing published on Thursday, March 3, 2022, Cheng Lu leaves his post as chief executive officer at the self-driving trucking company, after about a year and a half in the role, effective immediately.
Cheng Lu’s duties as CEO will be taken over by Xiaodi Hou, most recently Chief Technology Officer at TuSimple Holdings Inc.
“The Company moves to its next phase”
Cheng Lu’s departure from the CEO post is explained as follows. TuSimple said: “TuSimple Co-Founder and CTO Xiaodi Hou will succeed Cheng Lu as President and Chief Executive Officer and succeed Mo Chen as Chairman of the Board, effective today. This is part of a planned executive succession as the Company moves to its next phase of commercializing L4 autonomous trucking technology.”
Precise information regarding Cheng Lu’s future plans was not immediately available.
“Resignation”
TuSimple said: “TuSimple Holdings Inc. (the “Company”) announced the resignation of Cheng Lu as President, Chief Executive Officer and as a member of the Company’s Board of Directors (the “Board”), each effective as of March 3, 2022 (the “Termination Date”).”
Share price decline since July 2021
The announcement follows a decline in TuSimple Holdings Inc.’s share price of 73% since July 2021.
In the position of CEO since 2020
Cheng Lu became CEO of the Company in 2020.
Lu will serve as an Advisor to the CEO until March 2023 to further ensure an effective transition.
Cheng Lu has served as the Company’s president since January 2019, as the Company’s chief executive officer since September 2020 and as a member of the Company’s Board of Directors since June 2020.
Lu also served as the Company’s chief financial officer from January 2019 to December 2020.
Lu has more than 13 years of experience in strategy and corporate finance.
Prior to joining the Company, from 2016 to 2019, Lu served as co-founder and chief operating officer of KCA Capital Partners, a Pan-Asian growth equity investment fund.
Previously, from 2014 to 2016, Lu served as principal at HOPU Investments, from 2011 to 2014, as principal at CITIC Capital, from 2006 to 2008, as associate at Cerberus Capital, and from 2005 to 2006, as investment banking analyst with Citigroup in New York.
Lu holds a B.S. in computer science and economics from the University of Virginia, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Push-out Score determined
The Push-out Score™ determined by exechange gauges the pressure surrounding Cheng Lu’s move on a scale of 0 to 10.
exechange reached out to TuSimple and offered the company the opportunity to comment on the score.
Read the full story in the exechange report 10.2022 ($).