Ant Group restructures 3 divisions into units, names new president

Ant Group has restructured its business by reportedly elevating its CFO Cyril Han (韓歆毅) to president while reorganising three of its divisions into autonomous business units.

According to an internal staff email quoted by multiple media reports such as Reuters and HKEJ, Ant Group’s CEO and chairman Eric Jing (井賢棟) said in his new role, Han will be responsible for handling Ant Group’s digital payments, digital internet, and digital financial services. He will report to Jing.

Meanwhile, three of Ant Group’s divisions, including Ant International (螞蟻國際), OceanBase, and Ant Group Digital Technologies (螞蟻數字科技), have commenced independent operations and established separate boards of directors, implementing a CEO accountability system under the leadership of the board.

According to the reports, Jing said the restructuring aims to accelerate the pace of reform and advance Ant Group's three major strategies, including "AI first”, "dual engines of Alipay” (支付寶雙飛輪) and "globalisation acceleration” (加速全球化). The adjustment aligns with Ant Group's strategy of adapting to market changes and promoting a younger management team, to further ignite organisational vitality.

According to Ant Group’s official website, Han joined Ant Group in May 2014 and served as senior director and vice president. He has been helming the role of CFO at Ant Group since April 2020 and executive director of its board since January 2023. Prior to Ant Group, Han joined Alibaba in September 2011 as a senior director of corporate finance department.

Headquartered in Singapore, Ant International supports merchants to realise their growth aspirations through an array of tech-driven digital payment and financial services solutions. Meanwhile, OceanBase is a distributed relational database that supports hybrid transaction or analytical processing (HTAP) with one engine. Ant Group Digital Technologies promotes the development and application of digital technologies, introducing products such as AntChain (螞蟻鏈) and Zoloz (蟻盾).

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE has reached out to Ant Group for a statement.

Don’t miss: Ant Group completes procedures to end Jack Ma's control

Back in January this year, Ant Group completed the process of removing controlling stakeholders, marking the fulfilment of its founder Jack Ma's commitment to relinquish his dominant position in the Chinese finance giant in January last year.

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) approved an application to remove any controlling shareholders at Ant Group’s payment platform Alipay, according to HKEJ and SCMP. The bank designated Alipay as a company without an actual controller.

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