Jack Ma to retire from Alibaba, but he’ll still wield significant influence

Alibaba’s co-founder and executive chairman Jack Ma will be stepping down from the ecommerce giant, reported The New York Times. The move is rare as Chinese tycoons usually remain at the top of their organizations rather than step aside in their 50s.

An Alibaba spokesman has denied that Ma is stepping down immediately as executive chairman. The group later announced that Daniel Zhang, Alibaba’s CEO, will succeed Ma as chairman of the board and continue performing his current role. Ma will remain executive chairman for the next 12 months to oversee the leadership transition. He will remain on the board until 2020.

The move completes a transition in power that Ma had set in motion after stepping down as CEO in 2013. Earlier, he told Bloomberg that he will dedicate more time to philanthropical efforts. Like Microsoft co-founder and former CEO Bill Gates, Ma will create a foundation focused on education.

“We believed the only way to solve the problem of corporate leadership succession was to develop a system of governance based on a unique culture and mechanisms for developing consistent talent and successors,” Ma wrote in a letter to staff and shareholders.

The Alibaba Partnership is the fruit of that search for a system. Currently comprising 36 members, the partnership has the broad task of upholding Alibaba’s mission, vision, and values, both within the group and with the wider business world.

It also has “the right to nominate a majority of the directors to the board of the company,” the press release notes.

Ma is described as a “lifetime member” of the partnership.

Update (September 10, 10:00 a.m.): Added details about Alibaba’s succession plan.