Alibaba CEO and chairman steps down to focus on cloud business

Alibaba CEO and chairman Daniel Zhang at the company’s Hong Kong IPO in November 2019 / Photo credit: Alibaba

Daniel Zhang will step down from his roles as CEO and group chairman of Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba.

Following this development, he will continue to serve as CEO and chairman of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group, the firm’s computing services arm. He assumed the role last December.

Current Taobao and Tmall chairman Eddie Yongming Wu will become the next Alibaba CEO, while Alibaba executive vice chairman Joseph C. Tsai will take up the chairman vacancy.

These changes will take effect on September 10.

Zhang has been with the firm since 2007 and took up the CEO position in May 2015.

The shakeup follows a number of restructuring efforts at Alibaba, which was announced in March. Named the “1+6+N” plan, the company split into six different business units and aims to pursue independent fundraising IPOs.

It aims to spin off and list Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group within the next year.

Alibaba delivered strong results in the fourth quarter of its 2023 financial year, recording a revenue of US$30.3 billion and a net profit of US$3.2 billion.

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