The "Number One" in trillion-level ETFs leaves before the holiday, quickly joins Tianhong Fund, adding another talent to the team

Cailian Press, February 28 — (Reporter Feng Qijuan) Just before the Spring Festival, Hu Jie liquidated all 16 managed products for personal reasons, becoming the market’s focus. After the holiday, the answer was revealed: following the clearance of over 100 billion yuan in management scale, the former Huabao Fund ETF “queen” quickly joined Tianhong Fund.

According to the China Securities Investment Fund Association, Hu Jie completed her deregistration from Huabao Fund on February 12 and changed her employment institution on February 24, officially joining Tianhong Fund.

Before leaving, Hu Jie had worked at Huabao Fund for nearly 20 years. Her departure has a significant impact on Huabao Fund. As a core investment research talent cultivated internally and deeply tied to the company for nearly two decades, she not only managed several core products but also participated in and promoted the entire process of Huabao Fund’s ETF business from inception, growth, to expansion. She is one of the key leaders in the company’s ETF development.

In recent years, Tianhong Fund has continuously recruited well-known external investment research talents, now covering core areas such as equities, fixed income, and indices. After losing the fixed income “queen” Jiang Xiaoli at the start of the year, Tianhong Fund welcomed ETF star Hu Jie after the Spring Festival.

It is worth noting whether Tianhong can achieve leapfrog development in ETF business after Hu Jie’s joining.

“Queen” of ETFs departs Huabao Fund

The handover shows that on Hu Jie’s resignation day, nine products simultaneously appointed new fund managers. Additionally, seven products, completed their appointments between 2021 and 2025, are now managed by the previous managers who were appointed earlier.

Hu Jie’s 16 liquidated products are now managed by Zhang Fang, Feng Chencheng, Hu Yijiang, and Jiang Junyang. All four are internally trained by Huabao Fund.

Hu Jie, a core index fund manager cultivated by Huabao Fund, has a personal history deeply intertwined with the company’s development. She joined Huabao Fund in June 2006, when the company had been established just over three years. After joining, she worked in the trading department, product development, and quantitative investment, rising to become the director of index investment. Since October 2012, she has managed public funds, accumulating over 13 years of ETF management experience.

Hu Jie has witnessed the development and expansion of Huabao Fund’s ETF business. Her managed products nearly cover the core sectors of the company’s index system, and her management scale supports half of the company’s equity assets. By the end of last year, her 16 products had a total management scale of 101.362 billion yuan, accounting for 24.34% of Huabao Fund’s total asset management scale and 65.20% of the company’s stock fund scale. At the same time, Huabao Fund’s total managed assets reached 416.528 billion yuan, with stock funds totaling 155.474 billion yuan.

In fact, Hu Jie is not only the “queen” of Huabao Fund’s ETFs but also an unavoidable name in the development history of China’s ETF industry.

Her departure to Tianhong Fund has attracted high market attention. It is also noteworthy that before her departure, Huabao Fund experienced a significant senior management adjustment in the second half of 2025.

In August last year, Huang Kongwei resigned as chairman due to age reasons, and Xia Xuesong succeeded him. Public reports indicate that Xia Xuesong proposed a dual strategy of “consolidating advantages + product innovation,” emphasizing strengthening core businesses such as money market funds, bond funds, quantitative strategies, and overseas investments, with a focus on thematic ETFs and fixed income + products.

In September last year, Huabao Fund announced Xia Ying as the executive deputy general manager. Xia Ying previously served as general manager and chairman of China-Canada Fund; in October, Ou Jianghong was appointed vice president. Records show that Ou Jianghong previously served as deputy general manager and secretary of the board of Huabao Fund, as well as deputy secretary of the party committee and discipline inspection secretary. He has also worked at Baosteel Group and Baosteel Shares.

“Eager for Talent” Tianhong Fund

In recent years, Tianhong Fund has recruited several well-known industry fund managers from outside, covering equity, fixed income, and index funds.

In March, April, and May last year, Jia Teng, former equity investment director at Zheshang Fund; Gao Guoxin, former CIO and general manager at Manulife Fund; and Ma Long, former director of fixed income investment at China Merchants Fund, joined Tianhong Fund successively. Earlier, in April 2024, Nie Ting, former general manager of Huatai Securities Asset Management, also joined Tianhong Fund.

The top passive equity manager under Tianhong Fund is Hu Chao. By the end of last year, Hu Chao managed eight products with a total scale of 43.54 billion yuan. His management focuses on QDII, Hong Kong stocks, and overseas indices.

Based on last year’s data, although Huabao Fund’s ETF scale was larger than Tianhong Fund’s, its quarter-on-quarter growth rate was lower than Tianhong’s.

By the end of last year, Huabao Fund’s total ETF scale was 208.171 billion yuan, ranking 10th in the industry, with a quarter-on-quarter increase of 6.59% from 195.308 billion yuan. Tianhong Fund’s ETF scale was 114.997 billion yuan, ranking 16th, up 22.2% from 94.104 billion yuan.

In comparison, Huabao Fund’s core competitiveness in ETFs is concentrated in industry thematic sectors. In recent years, its layout in broad-based ETFs, which have become market favorites, is relatively limited. In terms of product quantity, scale, and market share, it has not formed a prominent advantage and lags behind leading broad-based ETF managers.

Similarly, the growth of Tianhong Fund’s ETF scale over the past year has mainly been driven by industry and thematic products.

For Tianhong Fund, Hu Jie’s arrival may bring not only personal prestige and management experience of over 100 billion yuan but also a comprehensive, systematic capability covering product development, investment management, and team building, validated at Huabao Fund.

Batch Departure of ETFs and Bond Funds as Main Force

According to Wind data, after excluding liquidations, 418 products have seen fund manager departures so far this year, as of February 27. Among these, the top five types are equity hybrid funds, passive index funds, medium- and long-term pure bond funds, flexible allocation funds, and debt hybrid funds, with 93, 70, 60, 38, and 33 products respectively.

In comparison, in 2025, a total of 4,760 products experienced fund manager departures, with the top five types being passive index funds, equity hybrid funds, medium- and long-term pure bond funds, flexible allocation funds, and secondary debt funds, with 1,048, 901, 711, 371, and 367 products respectively.

Overall, index funds represented by ETFs and bond funds have been the main force of departures over the past two years.

These 418 products come from 87 fund management companies. Among them, China Asset Management, Harvest Fund, and Huabao Fund had the highest number of fund manager departures this year, with 29, 19, and 18 products respectively.

Statistics show that three fund managers have resigned from more than 10 products at once this year: Huabao Fund’s former ETF “queen” Hu Jie, Bosera Fund’s former fixed income fund manager Wang Shuai, and Tianhong Fund’s former assistant general manager and head of the hybrid asset department Jiang Xiaoli. So far, Hu Jie has the most product departures this year.

Since the beginning of the year, Bosera Fund’s billion-yuan bond fund manager Wang Shuai has liquidated all managed products. Due to personal reasons, Wang Shuai resigned from five products on February 6 and has no remaining managed products, having completed deregistration with the China Securities Investment Fund Association. Previously, he resigned from seven products on January 30 and February 4. By the end of last year, Wang Shuai managed 12 products with a total scale of 11.518 billion yuan.

Due to personal reasons, Tianhong Fund’s assistant general manager and head of the hybrid asset department Jiang Xiaoli announced her resignation on February 9, simultaneously resigning from 10 products. Her next move has attracted attention, with industry insiders suggesting that “E Fund is a likely choice, holding multiple offers.”

Some industry experts point out that passive index funds rely on standardized operation mechanisms, allowing one fund manager to manage multiple similar products simultaneously; bond funds, due to their large scale and similar strategies, tend to form a “one-to-many” management model. Under such management structures, fund manager departures often trigger batch product handovers.