Org Chart: The people steering Lazada (updated)

Org Chart maps out the people at the top of Asia’s most prominent tech companies. Who are the key decision-makers? How are the teams organized? What does it tell us about the company’s priorities? We continue this series with ecommerce major Lazada.

Update (Jun. 03, 6:00 p.m.): This article was updated to reflect James Dong’s, Jiang Fan’s, Raymond Yang’s, and Lucy Peng’s new positions, and add Kaya Qin and William Xiong to the chart.

When Lazada launched in Southeast Asia in 2012, it was well placed to seize the region’s ecommerce market. A decade later, the company nearly went public until parent firm Alibaba shelved talks earlier this year.

Backed by German venture builder Rocket Internet and big-name investors like JPMorgan Chase, co-founders Maximillian Bittner, Mads Furholt, Stefan Bruun, and Rafael Stauch created Lazada. What started out as an Amazon clone would eventually come to define the early days of Southeast Asia’s ecommerce scene.

See also: A closer look at the Lazada mafia

Since then, Lazada has been through many changes, including a revolving door of CEOs.

In November 2018, Bittner was replaced as CEO by former Ant Financial fintech director Lucy Peng. But just nine months after assuming the role, Peng herself stepped down and handed over the reins to Lazada veteran Pierre Poignant in August 2019.

Poignant left Lazada in June 2020, and Chun Li became the ecommerce major’s third CEO in three years. He was CTO at Alibaba’s B2B business unit between 2014 to 2017. Li is also Lazada Indonesia’s CEO, indicating the significance of the country’s ecommerce market.

Li isn’t the only top executive to have ties to Alibaba. Lazada CFO Frank Luo, for example, was a finance director at the Chinese tech titan between 2017 to 2018. Andy Huang, Lazada’s chief logistics officer, had a three-year stint as vice president of supply chain and logistics at Cainiao, Alibaba’s logistics arm.

On June 3, 2022, Lazada announced that Chun Li will be replaced by James Dong as the company’s new group CEO with immediate effect. Li will continue to serve as advisor to Lazada Group chairman Jiang Fan and on the company’s board of directors.

Other Alibaba alumni at Lazada include Lilian Jiang, Howard Wang, and Raymond Yang, who serve as chief people officer, CTO, and COO respectively.

Here are a few more observations:

• Each country has its own CEO except Thailand and Vietnam, which are both helmed by James Dong.
• Jessica Liu was president of Lazada Group and CEO of Lazada Thailand until her departure in May 2021. It’s unclear whether her role as group president has been filled since then.
• Magnus Ekbom, chief strategy officer and acting CEO at Lazada Malaysia, and Gerald Glauerdt, chief logistics officer at Redmart/Lazada Singapore, are the only executives left from the original Rocket Internet founding team.
• Lazada Wallet is operated by Alibaba’s Alipay division. Some executives that oversee Lazada Wallet are also Alipay employees.
• Richard Ruddy and Emily Eades joined Redmart after the Singapore-based online grocery store was acquired by Lazada in 2016.

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