Peter Tong, a former regional head of Huawei’s consumer business and a corporate partner at Hua Capital, has joined EcoFlow. His role reportedly ranks second only to founder and CEO Wang Lei.
36Kr sought confirmation from EcoFlow, but the company had not responded as of publication.
Tong also holds a sizable equity stake linked to EcoFlow. According to corporate records from Aiqicha, he is currently the largest shareholder of one EcoFlow affiliate, with a 44.6% ownership stake.
A longtime Huawei executive, Tong brings decades of management experience. His LinkedIn profile shows that he joined Huawei in 1998 and held a range of positions, including engineer, vice president of human resources for the consumer business division, and president of the South Pacific region. In 2017, he became COO of a drug discovery subsidiary under WuXi AppTec. He joined Hua Capital, a venture fund founded by former Huawei executives, in 2022 as a corporate growth partner, and formally joined EcoFlow in the second half of this year.
Tong is deeply familiar with Huawei’s management framework and was among the contributors to “Dedication: The Foundation of Huawei’s Human Resources Management.” He has also appeared frequently at business schools and industry forums, where he has shared practical approaches to organizational management and leadership.
Tong is not the only Huawei veteran to join EcoFlow. In November, the company hired Jimmy Hu, former Huawei vice president of channel sales, as head of its home storage business, focusing on the recreational vehicle division. Hu previously served as a general manager at Smoore, an e-cigarette manufacturer.
EcoFlow has seen a series of notable personnel changes this year. The most discussed was the departure of CTO Chen Xi in September. Chen, an early member of the founding team and a former DJI employee like Wang Lei, had led R&D and strategic planning for several years. He oversaw the development of many of EcoFlow’s technologies and was widely regarded as a foundational figure within the company.
Over eight years, EcoFlow has grown into a unicorn valued at more than USD 1 billion, with annual revenue also exceeding USD 1 billion. According to 36Kr, the company’s recent recruitment of Huawei veterans reflects an effort to accelerate organizational transformation.
EcoFlow is among the most prominent startups to emerge from DJI’s talent ecosystem. DJI is known for its engineering-driven culture, where senior engineers and core product managers wield significant influence over decision-making.
Huawei, by contrast, operates at a vastly larger scale, with a workforce of roughly 200,000 employees, and has built a highly standardized and replicable management system. This includes its end-to-end DSTE framework, short for “Develop Strategy to Execute.” An industry executive told 36Kr that the two companies represent different management philosophies. “DJI, even when it manages, still leads with its technical DNA by building processes that serve people,” the executive said. “Huawei, on the other hand, has a highly institutionalized system where people serve the processes.”
These differences are also reflected in the talent each company produces. A startup founder told 36Kr that Huawei functions “like a military academy for management talent.” Its teams excel at large-scale coordination and targeted execution, but individuals often operate as parts of a larger system. DJI alumni, by contrast, tend to be deeply focused on product design and brand building. They are technically strong, the founder said, but generally less experienced in marketing and sales execution.
EcoFlow now stands at an inflection point. The company has established itself as a global leader in portable power stations in just seven years, but it also faces mounting organizational, strategic, and external pressures as it scales.
Its portable power products, aimed primarily at outdoor use and emergency power scenarios, are anchored by the Delta series, which spans entry-level to professional-grade models. The Delta 2 alone has sold more than one million units.
According to a 2025 industry report from Frost & Sullivan, global shipments of portable power stations reached 9.2 million units that year. By revenue, EcoFlow ranked first worldwide, with a 25.8% market share. At the same time, competition is intensifying. Rivals such as Jackery and Anker Innovations are investing heavily in fast-charging technology and multi-scenario use cases, increasing the risk of product homogenization.
To sustain long-term growth, EcoFlow has begun shifting part of its focus toward the larger and more competitive household energy storage market. This move places it in direct competition with global players including Tesla and Huawei, as well as mid-tier companies such as Anker.
In capital markets, Bloomberg reported on December 16 that EcoFlow has started preparing for a US IPO, with plans to raise at least USD 300 million. Against this backdrop, strengthening internal organization and management has become a priority. The influx of Huawei-trained executives reflects Wang’s attempt to introduce more formal structures. Industry observers generally agree that building organizational coherence and process discipline is now EcoFlow’s most pressing task.
Recruiting Huawei alumni has become a common strategy for Chinese startups entering a more mature phase of growth. The trend peaked in 2022, when Li Auto founder Li Xiang, facing competitive pressure from the Aito M7, publicly said he intended to learn from Huawei’s management model. Soon after, Li Auto hired several former Huawei executives, including Li Wenzhi, Zou Liangjun, and Yuan Chunfeng, signaling a push toward more systematized operations.
Since 2024, however, the results have been mixed. According to 36Kr, Li Auto’s sales teams engaged in aggressive internal competition, including cross-region poaching and internal kickbacks, in an effort to meet targets. The company’s heavy emphasis on sales performance also contributed to strategic missteps in the electric vehicle market. By this year, many Huawei-affiliated executives had departed, with CEO Li resuming direct oversight of organizational and personnel matters. A similar pattern emerged at Zeekr.
Still, it would be reductive to conclude that Huawei-trained managers are inherently ill-suited to startups. The outcome often depends on whether these executives can integrate with existing teams, whether responsibilities are clearly defined, and whether their management systems align with the company’s stage of development.
KrASIA Connection features translated and adapted content that was originally published by 36Kr. This article was written by Huang Nan for 36Kr.