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  • Daniel Zhang steps down from top Alibaba Group

    Daniel Zhang steps down from top Alibaba Group

    Alibaba Group has appointed Joseph C Tsai and Eddie Yongming Wu as the company’s new chairman and CEO respectively, marking the group’s one of the most significant organisational changes.

    The appointments will take effect on September 10. Tsai and Wu will succeed Daniel Zhang, who will continue to lead Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group as chairman and CEO.

    “This is the right time for me to make a transition, given the importance of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group as it progresses towards a full spin-off,” said Daniel Zhang, chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group. “The emergence of generative AI has also opened up exciting new opportunities that Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group is well-positioned to capture.”

    “Daniel has made exceptional contributions to the development of Alibaba Group since joining the company in 2007,” said Tsai, executive vice chairman of Alibaba Group. “He demonstrated extraordinary leadership in navigating unprecedented uncertainties affecting our business over the past few years.”

    Alibaba Group’s newly appointed CEO Yongming Wu, one of the group’s co-founders aside from Jack Ma and Tsai, will continue to concurrently serve as chairman of Taobao and Tmall Group. Wu was the technology director of Alibaba at the company’s inception in 1999. He founded Vision Plus Capital, a venture capital firm focused on investing in advanced technologies, enterprise services and digital healthcare in 2015.

    “Eddie was instrumental in architecting our technology platforms and guiding our strategic direction,” Tsai said. “He led the creation of our proprietary monetization platform on Taobao and Tmall, and drove the launch of the Mobile Taobao App to propel our company to the mobile-first era.”

    The group said last Thursday it is shifting its focus to building local businesses and online platforms outside of China with Europe as the top priority.

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  • All business based online now, says Alibaba CEO

    All business based online now, says Alibaba CEO

    The internet is no longer a business model but rather an essential piece of infrastructure on which all businesses need to operate, says Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang.

    “All businesses are based on the Internet now,” Zhang told the World Internet Conference in China on Friday, likening it to a basic utility such as water, electricity and gas.

    “It can only transform the future of the business landscape when it’s combined with other industries.”

    About 2000 attendees including world government and business leaders were in Wuzhen, a canal city similar to Venice in eastern China’s Zhejiang Province, for the second annual conference, hosted by the Chinese government, a forum for topics such as cyber security, innovations in technology and developments in eCommerce. Chinese President Xi Jinping opened the conference on Wednesday as its keynote speaker.

    During his speech, Zhang said  the integration of the internet with other industries led to the success last month of Single’s Day, the largest one-day online shopping event in the world. The annual eCommerce bonanza, held every November 11, generated $14.3 billion in total gross merchandise volume because of the ecosystem of businesses that the company has built with its merchant, logistics and data-analysis partners. In comparison, Cyber Monday, the US equivalent of the Single’s Day, brought in just $3.1 billion this year.

    “We have formed a complete chain including a merchandise pool, payment system, membership management and data analytics tools to serve customers and partners that share common goals and standards with Alibaba,” Zhang said.

    Indeed, businesses will further transform as they use “big data” to better serve their customers. Alibaba has long touted itself not just as an eCommerce company but one of data as well. The information collected from the 40 million transactions a day on the company’s online marketplaces – demographic data of buyers, their spending habits – can benefit manufacturers when enhancing product design and help brands grow their businesses in China.

    “Data is becoming energy and blood of the new business landscape,” Zhang said.

    Other Alibaba executives were also in attendance, including executive chairman Jack Ma and Lucy Peng, the CEO of Alibaba-affiliate Ant Financial Services Group.

  • China’s Alibaba names Daniel Zhang new CEO

    China’s Alibaba names Daniel Zhang new CEO

    China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba Group on Thursday named Daniel Zhang, currently Chief Operating Officer, CEO of the group, effective on 10 May 2015.

    Current CEO Jonathan Lu will remain on the board of directors of Alibaba Group as Vice Chairman. He will work with Daniel to ensure a successful transition in the coming months.

    “In this capacity Jonathan will play an important role in developing future leaders of Alibaba Group. This role is especially important as Alibaba Group continues to build the necessary talent to enable the company to grow and thrive in a rapidly changing environment,” the Chinese largest e-commerce company said in a statement.

    Daniel Zhang has been with the company for eight years and has held top management positions across the organization. He is also one of the founding members of the Alibaba Partnership. Zhang has been Alibaba’s chief operating officer since September 2013. In his role as COO, he oversaw the operations of all Alibaba Group businesses in China and internationally.

    Zhang first joined the company as Chief Financial Officer of Taobao Marketplace in August 2007. In 2008, he was appointed Chief Operating Officer of Taobao Marketplace and general manager of Taobao Mall.

    Under his leadership, Taobao Mall rapidly became one of Alibaba’s most important businesses and was highly recognized by consumers and brands in China and around the world. In 2011, he was named president when it first became an independent business unit, Tmall.com, which has become one of world’s largest online B2C platforms. Zhang was also a key architect of the 11 November Shopping Festival, and led it to become the world’s largest online shopping event.

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