Magnus Ekbom reclaims the crown as CEO of Lazada Indonesia

(Artwork by Tech in Asia’s Kathrinna Rakhmavika)

Last time we checked in with Lazada Indonesia, the firm named Alexandre Dardy and Elizabeth Craft as the company’s new co-CEOs. The arrangement didn’t last for long it seems, as today, Magnus Ekbom tells Tech in Asia he’s officially back in Jakarta as the fast-moving ecommerce company’s chief executive. As Lazada Indonesia is the dominant ecommerce player in Indonesia, this makes the 30-something Swede the archipelago’s de facto king of online retail.

It’s 8 pm on a Tuesday in Jakarta, and most employees at the Lazada office have knocked off for the evening. It looks like Magnus didn’t get the memo, as he struts out of a meeting and settles at his desk with a salad as if only now taking his lunch break. In terms of engaging with media and reporters, Magnus is not your typical Rocket Internet flunkie. Whereas other “founders and CEOs” born from Rocket Internet will only give safe responses approved by the PR department, Magnus has no filter.

“We made the decision that we needed full-time people to be here. Alex was sharing his time between Vietnam and Indonesia. He has a young family in Vietnam and to commute between the two countries was not really a viable model. We also needed a full-time CEO there in Vietnam,” Magnus explains. “Lizzie and Alex stepped in as I focused on other Group topics and they did a fantastic job. Alex is now back in Vietnam and Lizzie is driving helloPay, one of the most important initiatives for Lazada.”

For those who don’t know what helloPay is, Magnus describes it as one of Lazada’s most significant projects to date. Essentially, it is Lazada’s own epayments product that launched in November last year. helloPay provides a financial services solution to merchants and users. It’s currently available in Singapore and the Philippines. Similar to other payments solutions, helloPay enables merchants to get paid through an assortment of channels like credit card, debit card, online bank transfers, and convenience store payments. It is seemingly well-suited for Southeast Asian markets and naturally Lazada users. “Lizzie is now based in our Singapore headquarters as the co-founder and chief commercial officer of helloPay,” explains Magnus. Additionally, Craft is responsible for forging strategic partnerships in Southeast Asia.

(Update: 11/5/15: The above paragraph has been updated to give a more detailed and accurate portrayal of Elizabeth Craft’s new role in Lazada Group.)

See: Lazada Group’s Magnus Ekbom on Indonesian ecommerce and crushing competitors

Magnus claims he’s fully capable of serving as the CEO in Indonesia, while also acting as the group’s chief strategy officer for the entire region.

“Jakarta has changed a bit since I was last running Lazada Indonesia,” he admits, implying a slew of new ecommerce contenders in the form of Lippo’s MatahariMall, Mitra Adiperkasa’s MAPeMall, the Ardent Capital mafia with office supplies firm Bizzy as well as women’s ecommerce portal Moxy, and now Chinese behemoth JD. He adds, “It’s like this, everyone says, ‘oh there’s competition left, right, and center.’ But from my perspective if other ecommerce companies were not investing heavily into what will soon be the fourth largest internet market in the world, then I would be really worried. That would mean we’re doing something in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

In terms of revenue, Indonesia likely represents the highest-earning market for Lazada Group. The firm serves Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. While Lazada doesn’t give out traction numbers for specific markets, in Q1 of 2014, the firm’s gross merchandise volume — a metric used to describe the dollar amount of sales facilitated — sat at US$45.3 million. In Q1 of 2015, that number spiked to US$209.5 million, an overall growth of nearly 363 percent across the big six ASEAN markets. Indonesia was a key driver of this growth. During that same timeframe, the firm’s net revenue grew from US$30 million to US$59.4 million, and its gross profit jumped from US$2.2 million to US$9.6 million. The firm cites a few key ingredients to this growth: a focus on cross-border sales, a shift towards Lazada acting as a marketplace instead of a pure business-to-consumer play, as well as the firm’s mobile marketing efforts.

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