HNA Group has made its second high-profile hire of a foreign political figure in a matter of months, as the sprawling Chinese conglomerate continues to sell off assets to bolster its balance sheet.
The company, which has spent more than $40bn on global assets but more recently has been aggressively divesting them, has hired former senior US commerce department official Israel Hernandez as its head of international corporate affairs, it said in a statement on Wednesday.
Mr Hernandez’s most recent political appointment was as senior adviser to US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, as well as acting undersecretary of international trade for nine months until December 2017.