Baidu Inc. has poached a former executive Huang Shuang from Lufax, the Internet finance arm of Ping An Insurance Company of China, Ltd., to lead its consumer finance business in its newly established financial services group, according to Chinese media reports.
Huang Shuang will become the vice president in charge of consumer finance businesses and report to Baidu's financial services group head, Zhu Guang.
Baidu established its financial services group to develop consumer finance, mobile payment and Internet brokerage businesses in December 2015, in an effort to catch up with its rivals Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. in the Internet finance space.
Huang Shuang was in charge of products at Lufax, and was also a member of the executive committee. Before Lufax, she worked at Capital One Financial Corp. and Standard Chartered Bank.
This is the second senior hire for Baidu in the past two weeks. Last week, the Chinese Internet search engine said it had hired former China Everbright Bank Co., Ltd. asset management general manager Zhang Xuyang to join its financial services group.