Alibaba names new CEO and chairman amid leadership reshuffle

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Alibaba Group has named its chairman of Taobao and Tmall Group Eddie Yongming Wu (pictured right) as the group's CEO, succeeding Daniel Zhang and replace Zhang on the company’s board of directors as part of its major reshuffle to the leadership team.

Meanwhile, the company's executive vice chairman Joseph C.Tsai (pictured left) is promoted to chairman of the company. Both appointments will take effect on 10 September. Following this transition, Zhang will continue to lead Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group as its chairman and CEO.

Wu is one of the group's co-founders, a member of the Alibaba Partnership and chairman of Taobao and Tmall Group since May 2023. Wu was technology director of Alibaba at the company’s inception in 1999. He served as chief technology officer of Alipay from December 2004, and became business director of our monetisation platform, Alimama, in November 2005 and was promoted to its general manager in December 2007.

In September 2008, he was named the chief technology officer of Taobao , and in October 2011 he took on the role of head of Alibaba Group’s search, advertising and mobile business. Wu served as director of Alibaba Health Information Technology from April 2015 to October 2021 and chairman of Alibaba Health from April 2015 to March 2020. From September 2014 to September 2019, Wu was special assistant to Alibaba Group’s board chairman.

Alibaba has consistently innovated through evolution and breakthroughs from within over the past 24 years, and each transformation has catalysed new growth, according to Wu. "While our current transformation brings in a new corporate organisational and governance structure, Alibaba’s mission remains unchanged. We will continue to enable individuals and businesses to benefit from the digital economy and serve our customers with unique value proposition supported by innovation and our leading technology,” he added.

Meanwhile, Zhang is committed to strengthening Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group’s market leadership by making cloud computing and artificial intelligence more accessible for businesses of all sizes and industries as they continue their digital transformation. "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. I look forward to working closely with Tsai and Wu in the coming months to ensure a seamless transition," Zhang added.

Commenting on the appointments, Tsai said: “As chief technology officer of key businesses including Taobao and Alipay during Alibaba’s critical phases of development, Wu was instrumental in architecting our technology platforms and guiding our strategic direction. He led the creation of our proprietary monetisation platform on Taobao and Tmall, and drove the launch of the Mobile Taobao App to propel our company to the mobile-first era. I look forward to working with Eddie to spark our next phase of growth through technology and innovation.

Don't miss: Alibaba splits into six units as part of new restructuring plan

Tsai reaffirmed Zhang’s pivotal role in Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group and said that Zhang made numerous contributions to the development Alibaba Group since his tenure in 2007, where he exhibited good leadership in navigating unprecedented uncertainties affecting Alibaba’s business through the years. Under Zhang’s leadership, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group can experience future growth.

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE has reached out to Alibaba for more information.

This comes months after Alibaba's announcement of a major restructuring that it was mulling to divide itself into six units that will individually raise funds and explore initial public offerings, the biggest restructuring of the Chinese online commerce leader since its establishment more than two decades ago.

Alibaba said the restructuring would see itself spliting into six units including Cloud Intelligence Group(阿里雲智能), Taobao Tmall Commerce Group (淘寶天貓商業), Local Services Group(本地生活), Cainiao Smart Logistics Group(菜鳥), Global Digital Commerce Group (國際數字商業) and Digital Media and Entertainment Group (大文娛). The business units will separately set up their own boards of directors. Each of the them will have to seek possibility of their own fundraising avenues through initial public offerings (IPOs).