I'm in the county town, and you say I'm a big shot?

Chapter 676 Launching the Pilot Program for Rider Social Security Contributions
This was something Fang Qingye had always been thinking about.

After Ele.me and Meituan merged, they began internal integration. As a large number of former Meituan executives, including Wang Xing, resigned and left, the integration process accelerated.

In April of this year, the original Meituan APP was discontinued, and all user data was migrated to the Ele.me APP, marking the completion of the internal integration of the two companies. At that time, Ele.me will have nearly 80% market share in the food delivery market and become the market leader.

Following its internal reforms, Ele.me, building on its existing food delivery market, continued to expand into in-store dining, travel, and group buying. The launch of a peer-to-peer lending service similar to Alibaba's Ant Credit Pay also became a new profit driver for Ele.me.

Fang Qingye felt that the conditions for conducting the pilot program were ripe.

This morning, Fang Qingye arrived in Shanghai and, after settling Bai Ou and her son in, immediately took a car to Ele.me headquarters.

He was greeted by Yang Qian again.

Yang Qian was originally Zhang Xuhao's assistant, and now she is the board secretary, mainly responsible for preparing for shareholders' meetings and board meetings, handling shareholder inquiries, and coordinating the relationship between shareholders and the company's management.

"Chairman Fang, General Manager Zhang and the others are already waiting in the conference room," Yang Qian said respectfully.

She knew that Fang Qingye didn't come to the company often, and the board meetings were not held frequently, but when they were, they were always important.

Fang Qingye nodded and followed Yang Qian into the elevator to the fourth-floor conference room. People were already sitting on either side of the round table in the room, whispering about something. When they saw him enter, their whispers immediately stopped.

Fang Qingye went in and sat in the head seat, then looked at the directors present.

Since the merger with Meituan, the number of board members has also changed. In addition to Zhang Xuhao's original Ele.me team of four and CFO Wang Chenyang, Zhou Junchuan, a director sent by Dianping, was added later.

Meituan and Ele.me merged, and Wang Xing and Gan Jiawei, a former senior executive of Meituan, joined the board of directors. After Wang Xing resigned, Gan Jiawei remained in his position.

Wang Xing transferred all of his shares in Ele.me to Tencent, resulting in a significant increase in Tencent's shareholding. Tencent became the second largest shareholder of Tuofang Technology. As a result, Tencent sent James Mitchell, the former Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) of Tencent, who was a senior executive in Goldman Sachs' investment banking division before joining Tencent in 2011, to serve as a director of Ele.me's board of directors.

James Mitchell serves not only on the board of Ele.me, but also on the board of Dianping.

However, unlike Gan Jiawei, who serves as Ele.me's CPO (Chief Product Officer), Zhou Junchuan and James Mitchell do not hold any positions within the group and are considered non-executive directors.

James Mitchell was sitting next to Gan Jiawei, wearing a white shirt and tie. His nose looked particularly large, and he had blond hair. He was looking at Fang Qingye with a smile in his eyes, but Fang Qingye felt that his smile was strange and had some other meaning.

"Everyone's here, let's start the meeting now." Fang Qingye spoke concisely: "The reason we're holding this board meeting today is to discuss one thing: launching the Ele.me rider social security pilot program."

"This idea of ​​mine didn't come on a whim. When I was preparing to invest in Ele.me, after Xu Hao and others signed the investment agreement, I started to consider this matter. I felt that the time was right now."

Fang Qingye had already informed everyone of the board meeting agenda through the board secretary, Yang Qian. Upon hearing Fang Qingye's words, Wang Chenyang was the first to express his opinion:
“I agree. Now that Ele.me and Meituan have merged, there are over a million riders. The social security issues of these full-time and crowdsourced riders are becoming increasingly prominent. We need to seriously consider this issue. Now is the perfect time to find a place to conduct a pilot program—how about this, Mr. Fang?”

Wang Chenyang looked at Fang Qingye and said, "How about we use Jinghai City as a pilot city? You're familiar with the local leaders, which will be beneficial for our work."

Zhang Xuhao and the other three also agreed. Now, the four of them admired Fang Qingye to the point of worship and followed his lead without question.

Gan Jiawei hesitated for a moment, an expression that Fang Qingye quickly noticed.

However, Gan Jiawei did not object, but said, "I also agree to conduct a pilot project in Jinghai. We will decide on the next step based on the results of the pilot project."

Fang Qingye nodded, then looked at the two non-executive directors: "Mr. Zhou, Mr. Mitchell, what are your opinions?"

“Chairman Fang, I have no objections. I would be happy to see the pilot program succeed.” Mitchell has lived in China for almost ten years and can speak Mandarin, though not fluently.

"The social security issue for food delivery riders is not unique to China; developed countries in Europe and America face the same problem. I hope our pilot program can provide a beneficial path for companies worldwide."

Wow, that's quite politically conscious.

Fang Qingye couldn't help but look at this big-nosed foreigner with new respect.

“I agree.” Zhou Junchuan also spoke up: “I think it is very necessary to conduct pilot programs and make beneficial attempts. Ele.me is now the largest food delivery platform in China, and I think this issue will be put on the agenda sooner or later.”

This is true.
The next step is to establish a special working group with designated personnel to communicate with relevant departments in Jinghai District based on Ele.me's actual operations and to develop a feasible pilot program.

According to Fang Qingye's original plan, he intended to have Gan Jiawei take the lead in this matter—the former marketing operations officer of Meituan, who was very experienced in dealing with local government leaders and relevant departments.

However, seeing Gan Jiawei's hesitant expression, Fang Qingye suddenly changed her mind and looked at Deng Ye beside her: "Deng Ye, you are the company's marketing operations officer and often deal with local departments. You have a lot of experience. Why don't you take the lead in this matter? Let Wang Chenyang and Kang Jia cooperate, and the special team includes the heads of the public relations department, legal department, finance department and other departments."

Deng Ye had just returned from his honeymoon and quickly agreed to Fang Qingye's suggestion: "Okay, that way I can stay in Shanghai a little longer and spend more time with my wife."

Everyone laughed upon hearing this.

Once the personnel were finalized and the team was assembled, everyone shared their opinions, mainly their ideas for the pilot program. These ideas were then compiled by Deng Ye's team, who consulted relevant social security experts to gather their opinions and produce a draft. Finally, they communicated and coordinated with relevant leaders and departments in Jinghai City.

The meeting lasted for nearly three hours, ending close to midnight.

It was lunchtime, so Fang Qingye stayed to eat with everyone. Eleme already had its own internal canteen, so Fang Qingye followed them to the canteen. Of course, there was no need to queue. The three dishes, one soup, one meat dish, and two vegetable dishes tasted pretty good.

During the meal, everyone just chatted casually. After the meal, Fang Qingye went downstairs to leave, but Wang Chenyang followed her up and said, "Want to go for tea? There's a tea shop that opened on the west side of the square. Their tea is pretty good. I'll treat you to tea."

"Okay," Fang Qingye readily agreed.

He knew that Wang Chenyang's invitation to tea was not just about this one thing.

(End of this chapter)