Alibaba’s Daniel Zhang will leave the top post, replaced by Joseph Tsai
In a major overhaul at the top of the company, Alibaba Group, China’s leading e-commerce giant, announced on Tuesday that Daniel Zhang would relinquish his role as chairman and CEO of the company.
Mr. Zhang said he would continue to serve as CEO of Alibaba’s cloud computing division. Joseph Tsai, an Alibaba veteran who is the company’s executive vice president, will succeed Zhang as chairman and as a member of Alibaba’s board of directors.
The head of Alibaba’s e-commerce division, Eddie Yongming Wu, will succeed Zhang as CEO, the company added. Mr. Wu is currently the chairman of Taobao and Tmall Group, Alibaba̵[ads1]7;s e-commerce services. He will continue to lead both of these platforms as Alibaba’s CEO.
The changes come into force on 10 September.
The reshuffle comes just months after Alibaba said it would split into six divisions in what it called the “most significant” overhaul in its 24-year history. As part of the shift, each division came under the leadership of an independent CEO, and Zhang took on the additional title of CEO of Alibaba’s cloud intelligence group.
With the latest change, Mr. Zhang will no longer be Alibaba’s top executive, a role long held by the company’s founder, Jack Ma, instead taking on a smaller role as a division chief.
Mr. Ma was driven out of the public eye after criticizing Chinese regulators in 2020 for stifling innovation at Ant Group, Alibaba’s financial technology sister company. Following his remarks, Chinese officials suspended plans for Ant Group to sell shares in an initial public offering.
Mr. Tsai, who will now run Alibaba, met Mr. Ma in 1999 when Alibaba was still a free online portal, and joined the company the same year. He helped Mr. Ma secure early investments from Goldman Sachs and SoftBank. He managed the company’s IPO in New York in 2014, then the largest in history. Alibaba’s executive chairman since 2013, Mr. Tsai is the principal owner of the Brooklyn Nets, a National Basketball Association team.
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