From "Founder-Driven" to "Professional Synergy": Weilong (09985)'s Capability Puzzle Aimed at Long-Termism

On the evening of November 3, a personnel announcement from WL DELICIOUS (09985) drew considerable attention in the consumer sector and capital markets. Company founder Liu Fuping resigned as CEO and transitioned to co-vice chairman; 35-year-old Yu Feng was promoted from CFO to CEO, concurrently serving as co-vice chairman; Chen Yang, who has 18 years at Nestl and CFO experience at Hsu Fu Chi, took over as CFO. If one looks only at the announcement itself, this is nothing more than an ordinary executive reshuffle. But pulling the timeline back reveals another picture: in 2022, Weilong's Shanghai Second Center was established, forming a dual-center structure of the Luohe manufacturing headquarters and the Shanghai brand R&D center; in February 2026, Wei Zhe was appointed as a non-executive director, supplementing the board with strategic vision in the consumer sector and capital markets; in November 2026, the CEO and CFO were refreshed simultaneously, further strengthening Weilong's operational management capabilities. Four years span these three steps, at an unhurried pace, all pointing in the same directionthis is not an isolated personnel change, but Weilong's capability puzzle aimed at long-termism, whereby the management mechanism shifts from "founder-team-driven" to "diversified, professional management team synergy." **Endogenous + External Recruitment, Piecing Together 1+1+1>3** Most people's imagination of a founder's succession is a zero-sum game of "exit" and "entry." Weilong's structure this time offers another answer. Liu Fuping steps down as CEO but transitions to co-vice chairman, remaining in the governance layer. The founding team has not left the field; what is cut is only daily operations' path dependence on individual experience; what is retained is the cultural anchor of long-term strategy. Weilong board chairman Liu Weiping's statement in the announcement was restrained"optimize the management team configuration, enhance decision-making and execution efficiency." Behind the restraint is a clear-headed judgment: the founder retreats behind the scenes yet still serves as ballast, providing the professional management team with full authorization and room for trial and error. The successor, Yu Feng, is a model of Weilong's "endogenous cultivation" model. He started in 2011 as an assistant designer, then served successively as R&D engineer, R&D manager, general manager of the e-commerce center, head of the media center, vice president of the marketing center and head of human resources, was promoted to senior vice president in 2024, became CFO in September 2025, and took over as CEO in November 2026. This "full-chain rotation" gives Yu Feng a deep understanding of Weilong's fabric. He has personally experienced the entire stages of category expansion, channel building, and Hong Kong stock listing, and is a key hub connecting the founding team with frontline operations. Having a core member familiar with the company's internal logic at the helm maximizes the smooth implementation of existing operating strategies, reduces business turbulence from management turnover, and protects the domestic base. The joining of new CFO Chen Yang is another key move in Weilong's "external recruitment and internal cultivation" talent strategy. He has 18 years of financial management experience at Nestl and 2 years at Hsu Fu Chi, with a career that progressed from finance on the China business line to the Swiss global headquarters, where he was responsible for financial management and planning analysis for the Asia-Pacific, Africa, and Greater China regions. The keyword of this rsum cannot be summed up in the word "internationalization"; rather, it is about extending financial management from after-the-fact accounting to ex-ante allocation within a complex structure of multiple categories, multiple channels, and multiple markets. The core mission of a CFO during an expansion phase is not merely to cut costs, but to ensure every investment has clear goals and return expectations. In 2026, Weilong is advancing brand investment, channel restructuring, and overseas cultivation on three fronts simultaneously, with funding needs continuously being released. The biggest risk at this stage is not a slow pace of investment, but a lack of quantifiable effect tracking and feedback loops for capital deploymentand Chen Yang's joining precisely addresses this strategic demand. This is also the most intuitive manifestation of Weilong's management mechanism upgrading from "founder-team-driven" to "diversified, professional management team synergy." The management complexity Weilong faces today far exceeds the experiential range of a single-hit-product company. Product R&D and innovation management, manufacturing and supply chain, channel building and marketing, finance and cost control, internal audit, risk control, and complianceeach line requires systematic professional capabilities as a foundation, rather than being stitched together by the intuition of a founder or any "all-around player." By 2025, Weilong's key positions had successively gathered professional managers with backgrounds at Unilever, McKinsey, Kraft, and Mars, forming an echelon with internally grown local core members. Now with Chen Yang's joining, the last piece of the professionalization puzzle has been filled in at financethe "central nervous system of business decisions." It can thus be seen that Weilong's executive adjustment this time is not a simple generational handover of management, but a complementarity of talent from different backgrounds and with different professional capabilities. The founding team, internally cultivated talent, and international professional managers form a "1+1+1>3" synergy, ensuring strategic stability while injecting innovative vitality. **Triple Compounding, Building the Bottom Card for Long-Term Growth** Of course, from a deeper perspective, Weilong's management upgrade this time is also a key part of its long-termist layout, aimed at building an organizational, product, and channel system capable of continuously generating compounding effects. First, organizational compounding: building a talent flywheel through external recruitment and internal cultivation. Weilong is building a management echelon that combines international vision with local insight through "external recruitment and internal cultivation." In recent years, Weilong's key positions have gathered senior professional managers from internationally renowned companies such as Unilever, McKinsey, Kraft, and Mars. At the same time, internally cultivated talent such as Yu Feng has entered core decision-making positions. This combination punch of "endogenous cultivation + external recruitment" creates complementarity among talent from different backgrounds and with different professional capabilities, supporting the company's long-term development. Once the talent flywheel starts turning, the compounding it generates will be far more enduring than any hit product. Second, product compounding: building a "delicious + healthy" product matrix through R&D. Weilong has now established dual R&D centers in Shanghai and Luohe, accumulated more than 200 authorized patents, and iterated more than ten flavors for the konjac snack single product alone. As consumer demand for health continues to rise, the core task of the future team is to continue deeply exploring the value of super ingredients such as konjac, continuously enrich the product matrix, reduce dependence on a single category, and use new products to break through category ceilings. Only when the organization fills in its capability boundaries can the business open up growth boundaries. Third, channel compounding: consolidating the domestic base and accelerating brand going global. In the domestic market, Weilong continues to deepen omnichannel channels including online e-commerce, offline distribution, value-format snacks, and membership stores, optimizing inventory turnover and terminal sell-through efficiency to solidify the ballast of domestic revenue. In overseas business, Weilong completed its U.S. online channel layout in July 2026, launching on three mainstream e-commerce platformsTikTok Shop, Amazon, and TEMUmarking the transition of its going-global efforts from an early product-testing stage toward systematic deepening. The ultimate goal of going global is not simply to sell goods overseas, but to achieve brand globalization, which places extremely high demands on cross-regional financial risk control and localized operationsand this is precisely the core purpose of bringing in a CFO with an international background this time. From operating results, as the triple compounding of organization, product, and channel gradually takes hold, Weilong's systematic management upgrade has begun to visible positive feedback effects. For the full year 2025, Weilong achieved revenue of RMB7.224 billion, up 15.3% year on year; net profit was RMB1.427 billion, surging 33.6% year on year, with both indicators hitting record highs. In the first half of 2026, the company's revenue of RMB3.715 billion and net profit of RMB766 million continued to grow. Highlights in profit quality are equally prominent: overall gross margin in the first half of 2026 was 47.8%, up 0.6 percentage points from the same period in 2025, while the administrative expense ratio was controlled at 6.0%. These figures show that systematic management has already produced results on the profit side. However, it should be noted that upgrading the management mechanism is a necessary condition for long-term positive factors, but not a sufficient condition for an earnings breakout. Weilong still faces many challenges on its path forward. For example, in terms of domestic market growth, how can the company find new growth points against the backdrop of a maturing spicy leisure food market; in terms of category innovation, after konjac snack, where is the next super hit product; in terms of overseas business, how will Weilong increase the share of overseas markets and achieve its globalization strategic goals, among others. These questions all require the new management team to answer with execution and synergy. For a long time, long-termism has easily been described as "hold and do nothing." But Weilong's governance upgrade curve shows that true long-termism is placing the right organizational capabilities in the right structural positions at the right time. It can be seen that even though the company still faces many challenges at present, with its forward-looking and efficient strategic layout, Weilong will possess strong momentum to enjoy the multiple compounding effects from organization, product, and channel. **Conclusion** In summary, Weilong's executive adjustment this time is a future-oriented strategic layout. Through the combination punch of "endogenous cultivation + external recruitment," it has optimized the knowledge structure of the management team and injected key management capabilities and professional experience into long-term strategies such as globalization, category upgrading, and channel deepening. From an investment perspective, a company's long-term value depends largely on whether its management team can translate strategy into sustained cash flow and competitive advantage. At present, Weilong's new management team holds three major enginescategory innovation, brand upgrading, and globalizationand their execution and synergy will be key to determining whether Weilong can truly grow from "China's leading spicy snack company" into a "leading global spicy leisure food enterprise." As Weilong stated in its announcement, this adjustment helps "provide strong support for the Group's sustained, steady, and long-term development." Therefore, for this company that started in Luohe and grew into a Hong Kong-listed leisure food leader, this organizational iteration is an important step on its road to transcending the single-product era and striving toward long-term growth goals.