Against the backdrop of deepening state-owned assets and state-owned enterprise reforms in the new era, establishing and improving the professional manager system has become a crucial focus of reform. Managers in state-owned enterprises are a key minority group for strengthening, improving, and expanding state-owned enterprises, and mobilizing their enthusiasm holds significant importance for the overall reform of state-owned enterprises. In this context, exploring and advancing the professional manager system with greater efforts has become a strategic focus and main direction for the comprehensive deepening of reforms in China’s next stage. However, many existing studies on the professional manager system in state-owned enterprises lack in-depth analysis, often staying at the level of superficial exploration of phenomena and single-dimensional discussions, lacking a comprehensive, summarizing, and deep-level analysis of the theoretical basis, evolutionary process, and practical models of the professional manager system in state-owned enterprises, especially the lack of attention and discussion on the vibrant practices of the professional manager system in state-owned enterprises launched by the central and local governments in recent years. Therefore, to more quickly adapt to the high standards required in the new development stage and better implement the professional manager system in state-owned enterprises, this paper intends to analyze the reform of the professional manager system in state-owned enterprises from four aspects: theoretical framework, evolutionary process, practical exploration, and reform path. Specifically, firstly, starting from three aspects of the necessity, constraint mechanisms, and incentive mechanisms of the professional manager system of state-owned enterprises, this paper theoretically interprets the issue of implementing the professional manager system in state-owned enterprises. Secondly, it summarizes and systematically reviews the four stages of reform preparation, initial brewing, trial adjustment, and promotion and deepening of the professional manager system in state-owned enterprises since the reform and opening up. Thirdly, based on the practice of the professional manager system in central and local state-owned enterprises in the new stage, four typical methods of four-modernization management, voluntary transformation, high degree of marketization, and partial marketization are extracted, and the problems existing in the current reform practice are proposed combined with the research situation. Fourthly, based on the current practice and problems, attempts are made to propose the direction and path of reform of the professional manager system of state-owned enterprises in China to further improve the system of modern enterprises with Chinese characteristics. The marginal contribution of this paper mainly lies in clarifying the theoretical basis of the professional manager system of SOEs in China, summarizing the corresponding stages of reform, and especially refining the latest typical practice patterns and existing problems in recent years. The reform ideas and path suggestions based on this will provide a useful reference for deepening the reform of the professional manager system of SOEs in the next stage. This paper provides a theoretical basis and empirical support for China’s SOEs to further improve the modern enterprise system, improve the corporate governance structure, activate the vitality of the management layer, better adapt to the requirements of market competition, and build an internationally competitive entrepreneur team. It is conducive to promoting the establishment of a professional manager system of SOEs with Chinese characteristics and provides decision-making support for government departments to optimize the policy-making of the professional manager system in SOEs.