Telecom network vendor ZTE today announced its new management team including the appointment of Zhao Xianming as president to drive the growth of the company.

ZTE said Zhao Xianming will be the chairman and president, while Zhang Jianheng and Luan Jubao will be vice chairmen.

It is believed that ZTE has replaced its president Shi Lirong due to the mounting pressure from the U.S.

US pressure on ZTE

ZTE has replaced its president Shi Lirong, as China’s second-largest maker of telecom gear tries to get off a U.S. export blacklist and shake off allegations it side-stepped sanctions against Iran, reports Bloomberg.

Shi Lirong has held the top executive role for the past six years. Shi Lirong will remain a director at ZTE.

ZTE, which competes with Huawei, grapples with a U.S. export ban that could hurt its smartphone and networking equipment business. The Commerce Department blocked U.S. exports to the Chinese company in March over allegations that ZTE re-sold goods to Iran, only to suspend that ban till June 30 after both sides opened negotiations.

The Commerce Department had asked the ZTE to remove senior executives involved in the alleged violations, the Wall Street Journal reported this week.

ZTE has yet to quantify the impact to its business. It faces significant disruption to its supply chain given major relationships with U.S. companies including IBM and Microsoft.

ZTE today said Wei Zaisheng, Fan Qingfeng, Zeng Xuezhong, Xu Huijun, Pang Shengqing, Zhang Zhenhui and Chen Jianzhou will be executive vice presidents of ZTE Corporation.

ZTE said Zhao Xianming joined the company in 1998 to be engaged in the research, development and management of CDMA products. He had been head of the research and development group, project manager and general product manager from 1998 to 2003.

In 2004, he was appointed senior vice president of the company in charge of the CDMA Division and the wireless product operations.

From January 2014 to March 2016, Zhao Xianming was executive vice president of the company. From January 2014 to December 2015, he was chief technology officer (CTO) of the company in charge of the Strategic and Platform Operations and System Product Operations. Since November 2015, Zhao Xianming has been executive director of the company, said ZTE.

Baburajan K