Ge Junjie’s Exam: How Can the Public Offering “Whampoa Military Academy” Keep Hold of Its Own “Stars”?

A large public fund being called a "Whampoa Military Academy" might be easy to understand.

But when a small-to-medium-sized public fund frequently becomes a "Whampoa Military Academy" that exports star research and investment talent, it leaves a rather mixed feeling.

In South China, there is such a fund company—the established public fund Baoying Fund.

Recently, this fund company once again saw personnel changes. General Manager Yang Kai, who had served for over seven years, resigned for personal reasons, and Deputy General Manager Ge Junjie was promoted to General Manager. On the same day, Deputy General Manager Zou Chunyu stepped down from his deputy general manager role due to work requirements but will continue to serve as the company's Party Committee Secretary and Director.

The change in core executives might be an opportunity for Baoying to start anew. But for the new General Manager Ge Junjie, perhaps the biggest challenge is not just how to scale up, but how to solve the long-standing talent problem—the loss of core talent.

Established Public Fund Changes General Manager and Deputy General Manager on the Same Day

Baoying Fund is the twelfth fund company established in the industry, founded in May 2001, just one month later than the current industry leader E Fund. But its development pace is "several orders of magnitude" behind the latter.

In mid-2026, Baoying Fund announced that General Manager Yang Kai, who had served for seven years, resigned for personal reasons, and Ge Junjie was appointed as the new General Manager.

The announcement shows that Ge Junjie worked at the Shenzhen Municipal Government Foreign Affairs Office and the Shenzhen Municipal Government Financial Development Service Office from July 1995 to December 2007, holding positions such as Principal Staff Member and Deputy Division Chief.

He joined Baoying Fund in December 2007 and has worked there for nearly 20 years. He has served as a researcher, General Manager's Office Director, Board Secretary, Head of the Institutional Investment Department, General Manager Assistant, and Deputy General Manager.

Notably, Ge Junjie also concurrently served as the General Manager of the Equity Investment Department and was the first committee member after the General Manager on the Investment Decision Committee. This means Baoying Fund has welcomed a new leader with a long tenure at the company and a research and investment background.

On the same day, Baoying Fund also announced that Deputy General Manager Zou Chunyu stepped down from his role due to work requirements, but Zou Chunyu will continue to serve as the company's Party Committee Secretary and Director.

Predecessors Had Different Styles

According to Wind statistics, Ge Junjie is the seventh general manager since the establishment of Baoying Fund.

Each of these seven general managers had a distinct style, and many were highly influential figures in the industry.

The establishment of Baoying Fund began in June 2000. The company was set up based on the cleanup and regulation of the former "Blue Sky Fund" and was one of the first batch of pilot fund companies under the CSRC's "new governance structure, new internal control system" in 2001. In 2001, Liu Jingxiang, a senior executive of shareholder Foreign Trust and former central bank staff, became the company's first general manager.

However, shortly after its establishment, the company encountered the first bear market of the A-share market in this century, so operations were not smooth. By 2004, with more than half of the equity changing hands, a series of personnel changes occurred at Baoying Fund, and Jin Xu became the general manager.

Jin Xu was previously a deputy general manager at China Asset Management and earlier worked in the regulatory agency's fund department, giving her deep familiarity with the industry. She later shone at positions such as Guotai Fund and China Merchants Fund, leading those companies to frequent improvements, but her tenure at Baoying Fund was not long—less than two years—highlighting the complex situation at Baoying at that time.

Next, Lu Jinhai from Southern Fund took over as general manager of Baoying Fund. Lu Jinhai and his successor Wang Qin left a strong mark of prioritizing equity investment at Baoying Fund, but both had relatively assertive working styles. At that time, the controlling stake of Baoying Fund's major shareholder had been transferred to a state-owned enterprise. A delicate relationship formed between the assertive general manager and the assertive shareholder.

Lu Jinhai holds a Ph.D. in Economics and was only 35 when he became general manager of Baoying Fund. Previously, since October 2001, he had worked at Southern Fund for a long time, serving as Director of the Financial Engineering Department, Director of the Information Technology Department, and Director of the Investment Strategy Department, accumulating extensive experience in investment and information technology.

Wang Qin also holds a Ph.D. in Economics. In his early years, he worked at the Education Office of the Henan Branch of the People's Bank of China and the Securities Department of Hainan Hong Kong-Macau International Trust and Investment Corporation. He served as Deputy General Manager of Sanya Dongfang Industrial Co., Ltd. and Director of the Guosen Securities Research Institute. His experience in the fund industry came as Deputy General Manager of Great Wall Fund in charge of marketing, giving him a deep understanding of the industry.

After that, Zhang Xiaochuan briefly served as general manager of Baoying Fund.

Then came Yang Kai. Yang Kai served the longest tenure as general manager since Baoying Fund was established—seven years. He had previously worked at Baoying Fund for a long time, had a distinct style, and was adept at handling relationships with all parties. However, under Yang Kai, Baoying Fund was unable to replicate the brilliance of its predecessors.

In 2026, the "command" of Baoying Fund changed hands.

A "Whampoa Military Academy" That Produces Stars

Among small-to-medium-sized fund companies with comparable management scales, Baoying Fund is likely one of the most famous. Its fame comes from producing star fund managers.

In its early years, Baoying Fund had many excellent fund managers and frequently changed investment directors like a revolving door.

But the first fund manager to break through the circle was Wang Ruyuan, later known as the "No. 1 Public Fund Manager." Wang Ruyuan rose to prominence during the 2012 tech stock rally, known for her bold bullish stance on tech stocks.

With a strong academic background tied to the fund industry and a solid research background in the tech sector, she was almost a fund manager born for the tech stocks of that era. Wang Ruyuan joined Baoying at a very good time—she joined in July 2011 and became the fund manager of Baoying Core Advantage in June 2012.

Just then, the tech stock rally began. She quickly became one of the most well-known tech sector fund managers of that year.

Wang Ruyuan also inspired a large group of growth stock investment talents at Baoying. The later-famous "Four Little Dragons of Baoying"—Peng Gan, Zhang Xiaoren, Gai Junlong, and Yang Kai (the recently resigned general manager)—all emerged alongside Wang Ruyuan. These talents continued to deliver strong performance after Wang Ruyuan left, ushering in another peak for Baoying. However, most of them left during the major market turbulence between 2016 and 2017.

After several key figures departed, Baoying Fund went quiet for a while but still maintained a relatively good investment gene. Xiao Xiao, who later became well-known in the market, gradually became the company's investment core. Subsequently, the company also produced a group of research and investment talents such as Li Jin, Zhang Zhongwei, Chen Jinwei, and Yang Siliang. However, after becoming famous, these talents gradually moved elsewhere. Currently, Li Jin, Zhang Zhongwei, Chen Jinwei, and Yang Siliang have successively joined large fund companies like Invesco Great Wall, Penghua, and E Fund, each achieving good development. This has earned Baoying Fund the reputation of being a "Whampoa Military Academy" in the industry.

Recently, the market has also noticed that funds managed by Rong Zhineng, Deputy General Manager (presiding) of Baoying Equity Investment Department, such as Baoying Transition Power and Baoying Technology 30, have added fund managers, sparking speculation about his future moves. If Rong Zhineng changes again, it would undoubtedly mean the company loses another key equity research and investment backbone.

Performance Highlights Not Translated into Scale Growth

It is worth noting that although Baoying Fund has always managed to produce fund managers with performance highlights during various market cycles, the company's overall scale has not expanded significantly along with the market.

According to Wind data, as of the end of the first quarter of 2026, Baoying Fund's public fund assets under management exceeded 69.66 billion yuan, with non-money market fund scale at 43.17 billion yuan, ranking around 82nd in the industry, still a small-to-medium-sized company.

Looking at the trend, at the end of the third quarter of 2024, just before the start of the current market rally, the company's public fund management scale was 79.29 billion yuan. However, during the subsequent clear market recovery, Baoying Fund's overall scale actually decreased by about 9.63 billion yuan.

In particular, the scale of equity funds also declined. As of the end of the first quarter of 2026, the combined scale of Baoying Fund's stock funds and hybrid funds was 20.42B yuan, lower than the 24.14 billion yuan at the end of the third quarter of 2024, a decrease of about 3.72B yuan.

Although Baoying Fund has a distinctive equity investment feature and is not short of high-yield products at certain stages, product performance has struggled to effectively translate into sustained subscriptions and management scale growth.

Whether this is caused by frequent turbulence among research and investment talent or by deeper unresolved company institutional mechanisms is worth pondering.

For a fund company known for equity investment, this contrast is actually very critical.

The Baton Handed to the New Leader

For the new General Manager Ge Junjie, how to stabilize the core research and investment team and improve talent incentives and梯队 building will be the primary issue he cannot avoid after taking office.

From his resume, Ge Junjie has long held internal positions at Baoying Fund and has been in charge of research and investment for many years, familiar with the company's research and investment system and business context. His appointment may help with the stability of the company's investment capability building.

But the challenges before him are equally daunting. Baoying's history has seen a frequent outflow of research and investment talent despite producing many. Such a strong talent inertia may not be easy to change. Retaining core research and investment talent and converting short-term performance advantages into long-term scale growth are hurdles he cannot avoid during his tenure.

All of this will be answered by time.

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