BEIJING, CHINA — Deyu Agriculture Corp., Shanxi Province, China announced that effective April 15, Jianming Hao resigned as chief executive officer (CEO) of the company, and Greg Chen, former company president, was appointed as the new CEO.

Jan Poulsen resigned as a director of the company and was appointed as president.

"We thank Jianming for his contribution to Deyu. He worked hard to lead the company through challenging periods. His vision and leadership have provided Deyu with the foundation for its future growth," said Executive Director Hong Wang on behalf of Deyu's board. "Jianming will remain on the company's board and serve as chairman where he will stay closely involved through the transition to impart his knowledge and experiences in the industry.

"Greg previously served as our president, and has over 15 years of international business strategy, development and management experience in various industries," Wang said. "The board has complete confidence that Greg is the right person to be our next CEO. With the upcoming industrial and market opportunities and challenges, Greg will lead the enhanced management team to achieve more sustainable competitiveness on multiple strategic and operational fronts for the company.

"We are also excited that our management team has an addition of Jan as president," Wang said. "Jan's 20-plus years of international management experiences, operational proficiencies and skills within strategy and business development in the food and beverage industries, will be very instrumental to our future growth."