Mr. Wu has extensive experience in corporate finance, technology and management; he also served as a Managing Director of Bain Capital Private Equity previously.
On December 30, 2022, NaaS (NAAS:NASDAQ), one of the largest and fastest-growing electric vehicle charging service providers in China, announced that the Company has appointed Alex Wu as its CFO and President, effective January 15, 2023. Mr. Wu will join the Board of Directors of NaaS.
Previously as a Managing Director of Bain Capital Private Equity, Mr. Wu accumulated rich experience in finance, technology and management. In addition, during his tenure at Bain Capital, he served as a board director or board observer of several portfolio companies. After joining NaaS, Mr. Wu will be in charge of the Company's business management, financial management and mergers & acquisitions and will help the Company with medium and long-term strategic development.
Mr. Wu is an executive with international vision and rich management experience. He is expected to help NaaS implement the new strategy and capture the fast-growing Chinese new energy vehicle market. "This is an exciting moment for us," said Wang Yang, Founder and CEO of NaaS. "Alex brings in a wealth of experience and skills in both business and finance. We are confident that this appointment will create value for NaaS and our shareholders."
As of September 30, 2022, NaaS' charging solutions had serviced 1,282 charging station operators and connected over 45,000 charging stations with over 434,000 chargers on NaaS' network. In the first three quarters of 2022, charging volume transacted through the Company's network reached 1,892GWh, and gross transaction value reached RMB1,861 million, representing 2.29 times and 2.35 times that of the same period of 2021, respectively. The Company also established strategic cooperation partnerships with Chevron, Li Auto, NEWRIZON, Ohways, On Time, DianYue Travel, Tunghsu Group, and other industry partners during the third quarter of 2022.
NaaS is a subsidiary of Newlinks Technology Limited. Bain Capital invested in Newlinks in March 2021 as the lead investor and was also involved in the pre-IPO funding of NaaS in January 2022.
China's EV and charging service market has maintained a rapid growth rate. According to Frost & Sullivan's forecast, the number of public chargers will reach 1.24 million by the end of 2022, with a year-over-year growth rate of 52.9%. With the increasing penetration of EV cars, the growth rate will continue to accelerate in 2023 to 72.6%, with 2.1 million public chargers expected to be installed.
Referring to NaaS and Newlink, Jonathan Zhu, Managing Director and Co-head of Asia Private Equity, Bain Capital, said, "China's transportation energy market is entering an era supported by both oil and electricity. NaaS is a leading EV charging solution provider in China, and what it is doing is of huge commercial and social value. China is the largest new energy market in the world. It will bring meaningful opportunities to leading digitalization companies in the industry."