[ad_1]
In late March, Daniel Zhang announced what he called the “most significant” overhaul in the 24-year history of Alibaba, one of China’s original technology conglomerates, and called for investors from the public. To make things easier, we divided the company into six units.
Mr. Zhang, now the tech giant’s chairman and chief executive officer, is leaving his top job and stepping down from Alibaba’s board of directors, as two of the company’s co-founders have been promoted to leadership positions.
Alibaba announced Tuesday that Zhang, 51, will step down from his top job in September. Instead, he will only serve as CEO of Alibaba’s cloud computing division, a role he assumed when the company announced a reorganization in March. In preparation for going public, Alibaba announced plans to spin off its cloud division into a separate company in May.
Joseph Tsai, 59 years old A veteran with roots in Alibaba’s founding will be promoted from executive vice chairman to chairman. Alibaba’s other co-founder, Eddie Yongming Wu, will replace Zhang as chief executive officer.
“This is like the oldest conservative,” said Duncan Clarke, chairman of BDA China, an investment advisory firm in Beijing. “A reliable team, an old guard, was in charge again.”
Alibaba is undergoing a leadership change at a critical time. The company was the highest-profile target of Beijing’s crackdown on the power of China’s biggest tech companies. The company’s stock price has fallen from its peak in 2020.
Alibaba founder and billionaire Jack Ma came under public scrutiny in 2020 after criticizing Chinese regulators for stifling innovation at Alibaba’s financial technology arm, Ant Group. I was disappointed. Following his comments, Chinese authorities suspended Ant Group’s plans to sell shares in an initial public offering (IPO). In 2021, China’s antitrust regulator fined Alibaba $2.8 billion for preventing merchants from selling products on other shopping platforms.
Mr. Ma, a popular figure in China and long the face of the company, publicly announced his return to China just this year, just as Alibaba announced a reorganization, partly due to increased regulation by the Chinese government. This is seen as a response to the
On Saturday, Ma attended a math competition sponsored by Alibaba’s research arm, according to a post on the institute’s blog. Although Ma no longer holds an official position at Alibaba, he remains one of Alibaba’s largest shareholders with a 4.5% stake as of 2021, according to his company filings.
In a letter to employees on Tuesday, Zhang said the time had come to “focus our efforts” on the spinoff plan. He also mentioned the need to clearly differentiate his role at Alibaba and the cloud division.
Some former employees say the new chairman, Tsai, has an inseparable relationship with Ma. The two met in 1999, when Alibaba was still a free online portal, and Tsai joined the company that year. He helped Ma secure initial investment from Goldman Sachs and SoftBank, and in 2014 led the company’s initial public offering in New York, then the largest in history.
Tsai, who has been Alibaba’s executive vice chairman since 2013, is also the majority owner of the National Basketball Association team, the Brooklyn Nets.
The promotion of Mr. Wu, a longtime executive in Alibaba’s e-commerce division, signaled to analysts that Alibaba will continue to make online shopping a core part of its business.
Mr. Wu, who is in his late 40s, led Alibaba’s transformation from an e-commerce giant to a mobile giant, turning digital payment app Alipay into one of the default payment formats across China. He will continue to serve as chairman of Alibaba’s two domestic e-commerce businesses, Taobao and Tmall.
Zhang told investors that Alibaba would become less centralized and more efficient by spinning off components. However, Alibaba also recently announced the creation of a high-level committee to decide on the allocation of funds to a group of startups, leading some analysts to believe that Alibaba still has power in the hands of a few key players. I took this as a sign that he was in control.
Zhang succeeded Ma as chairman of Alibaba in 2019. A rising star at the company at the time, he was the driving force behind Singles’ Day, Alibaba’s most successful shopping event. Known for his attention to detail and problem-solving ability, Mr. Zhang was widely seen as a complement to Mr. Ma, who was known within the company for his visionary talent.
Alibaba is synonymous with online shopping in China. But the company has since expanded into a variety of businesses, from digital payments to delivery services to entertainment. In recent years, it has expanded its e-commerce division and contributed to the AI boom with its cloud computing division.
Jacob Cook, CEO of e-commerce consultancy WPIC, said Tsai’s return, which has extensive investments around the world, is a natural fit given Alibaba’s recent international focus. He said it was a choice.
Alibaba poured $1.6 billion into its Southeast Asian e-commerce business last year, according to Singapore company records provided by research firm VentureCap Insights. And last week, it announced plans to launch a local version of its e-commerce arm, Tmall, in Europe.
[ad_2]
Source link
