Alibaba is replacing Daniel Zhang as chairman and CEO as the Chinese tech giant undergoes the biggest shakeup in its history.
Joseph Tsai, executive vice chairman and a co-founder of Alibaba (BABA), will succeed Zhang as chairman, the company said Tuesday. Eddie Wu, chairman of e-commerce unit Taobao and Tmall Group, will succeed Zhang as chief executive officer.
Both appointments will take effect in September, and Zhang will continue to serve as the chairman and CEO of Alibaba’s cloud unit.
This is the second time Alibaba has undergone a major change in executive leadership in a few years after co-founder Jack Ma stepped away in 2019.
And it comes just months after the company announced its biggest restructuring in 24 years.
The company said in March that it was splitting into six separate units, including cloud, e-commerce, logistics, media and entertainment.
Each unit is now overseen by its own CEO and board directors, and most of them can pursue separate listings or fundraisings.
“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,” Zhang said in the announcement.
He has been Alibaba CEO since 2015.He added that the emergence of generative AI has opened up “exciting new opportunities” for the company’s cloud business.
Wu, also a co-founder of Alibaba, served as the technology director at the company’s inception in 1999.“While our current transformation brings in a new corporate organizational and governance structure, Alibaba’s mission remains unchanged,” he said.
Zhang was appointed by Alibaba as CEO in May 2015, eight years after he joined the company.
In 2019, he replaced Jack Ma as the executive chairman, as Ma retired on his birthday and the 20th anniversary of the company as he had promised.
Alibaba is China’s largest e-commerce company, boasting more than 900 million active users annually on its Taobao and Tmall platforms. It also operates the country’s biggest cloud computing and digital payment platforms.
But the company, along with its co-founder Ma, has been at the center of a sweeping crackdown by Beijing in recent years. (CNN)