By CUI Peng
With neither fanfare nor social-media posting, Tencent Education president YIN Yu left the company some time ago. No explanation, internal or external, has been given.
Yin worked at MSN China during the period of competition between QQ and MSN. After joining Tencent in 2006, he became GM of instant messaging and was responsible for QQ's product business. In 2014, he was promoted to VP, responsible for much of the company’s customer-facing business. At the end of 2021, Yin became the boss of Tencent Education.
Yin's performance at Tencent has not been particularly good in recent years. After restructuring in 2018, Yin’s business moved into PCG (Platform and Content Business Group), where he took over the QQ browser and news feed.
When Yin took charge of the education business, the environment had already undergone dramatic changes, and education had disappeared from Tencent's list of major advertisers.
While Yin advocated for QQ, WeChat continued to grow and expand. Cost-cutting and efficiency-enhancing across the entire group in 2022 saw the smart education team reduced to a skeleton crew.
The person now rumored to be in charge of Tencent Education is SHI Mei, Tencent Cloud VP.
Tencent Education is now downsizing and changing direction by phasing out customer-facing businesses.
