华为轮值CEO郭平详解公司治理结构

人们经常把史蒂夫•乔布斯当作前瞻型CEO的典范。和苹果这样的企业相比，华为在组织结构方面有哪些优势和劣势？

    我们的管理模式相当新颖。实际上，它来自一本书中的想法。这本书叫《会飞的水牛》（Flight of the Buffalo），作者是美国人（詹姆斯•比拉斯科和拉斐尔•斯特耶）。书中的理论和迁徙鸟类如何飞越大西洋有关——它们总是排成人字型，但带头的并不总是同一只鸟。也就是说它们会更换位置，轮流带领整支队伍飞越海洋。我觉得，不管是我们提到的苹果，还是其他公司，它们都有各自的管理结构。

这种轮值CEO制度是华为的长期安排吗？还是说这仅仅是一个接班人计划?

    我刚才说过，我们去年才启用这项制度。我觉得我们需要更多时间来观察它的效果。

你说过贵公司希望更加透明。你们正在采取哪些措施来提高透明度和开放度？特别是针对美国而言？

    一直保持开放和透明是我们的既定政策。人们可能不知道，从2000年开始我们就一直和毕马威（KPMG）合作。毕马威是华为的全球审计机构，负责审核华为的财报。你可以从华为网站上下载去年和前年的年报。我们也召开年度分析师会议。在我们的年报中，你可以看到华为的治理结构、董事会成员，包括其简历，还能看到我们的业务增长近况和其他重要信息。华为不是上市公司，但我们决心遵循上市公司的准则和标准。借这个机会，我想来进一步解释一下我们为什么没有上市。在中国，股东人数超过200名的公司没办法上市。我们知道中国政府正在着手制定非上市公司规范。据我所知，美国证券交易委员会（SEC）在谷歌（Google）的股东人数达到500名时曾要求该公司上市。中国的公司法仍在制定中。但就未来而言，我们不排除任何可能性。现在华为的员工股东已经超过6万名（最新数据：根据华为提供的信息，该公司现有7.42万名员工股东）。

我之前的印象是华为所有的员工都是股东。这么看来贵公司15万名员工并不人人都是股东？

    对。但所有股东确实都是员工。

并非所有员工都持股，但所有股东都在华为上班？

    实际上，期权就是我从美国引进到华为的。我曾在美国见过两家咨询公司。他们告诉我们，初始阶段每个人都可以当股东，因为我们需要有现金流。因此，在华为转入发展阶段后，只有那些骨干和关键成员才会成为股东。我们还把员工分为不同的类别。你会发现工程部门员工的持股比例非常高。现在，我们自我定位是正处于第二阶段，发展阶段。

那么接下来是什么阶段？

    接下来将是成熟阶段，但我们希望自己一直处于发展阶段。（财富中文网）

    译者：涛

Steve Jobs is often used as an example for a visionary CEO. What are the advantages and disadvantages to your structure versus a company like Apple?

    Our management model is quite new, but actually it comes from an idea from a book written by an American author, called Flight of the Buffalo [the book was written by James A. Belasco and Ralph C. Stayer]. The theory of that book is about how migrant birds fly across the Atlantic Ocean -- they always fly in a V-shape but the lead of the team is not always the same bird. So they change and rotate to lead the whole team across the ocean. So I think for every company whether we talk about Apple or others they have their own different governing structure.

Is this rotating CEO structure seen as a long-term arrangement for Huawei, or is this just a succession plan?

    Like I said we only started this system last year. I think we need more time to observe how it works.

You've said that you want to be more transparent. What steps are you taking to be more transparent and more open, especially when it comes to the U.S.?

    It is our established policy to continually be open and transparent. You might not know that since 2000 we have been working with KPMG; they are our global auditor to review our reports. And you can also download our annual report for last year and the year before last on our site. We also have our annual analyst meeting. In the annual report you can also find our governance structure and also our members of the board, including their CVs and also an update of our business growth and other important information. We are not a listed company, but we are determined to follow the criteria and standards of a listed company. I would like to take this opportunity to say something more about why we are not listed. In China, if a company has more than 200 shareholders there is no solution for a company like that to be listed. And we know that the Chinese government is also taking initiative to establish regulations related to non-listed companies. I know that when the number of shareholders of Google (GOOG) reached 500, then the SEC required them to go public. So in China the company law is still in the process. But for the future we do not exclude any possibility. Now we have more than 60,000 employee shareholders. [Update: According to Huawei, the company now has 74,200 employee shareholders.]

I was under the impression that all employees were shareholders. So not all of your 150,000 employees are shareholders?

    You are right. It is true that all of the shareholders are employees.

Not all employees are shareholders but all shareholders are employees?

    Actually I was the very person to introduce the stock options from the U.S. I visited two consulting firms in the U.S. They told us that in the initial phase everyone could be shareholders because we needed to have the cash flow. So when the company shifted into the development phase only the mainstay, key members of the company would be shareholders. And in Huawei we have different categories of employees. If you look at engineering groups they have a very big percentage of the shares. So now we position ourselves in the second phase, the development phase.

And what's the next phase?

    The next phase will be the mature phase, but we hope that we are always in the development phase.