JD.com founder Richard Liu steps down as CEO

JD.com's founder Richard Liu (pictured) has stepped down as CEO of the company and succeeding him is current president Xu Lei. Liu will continue to remain as the chairman of the board and focus on guiding the company’s long-term strategies. According to a filing on HKEX, the appointments are effective immediately.

Under Liu’s leadership, JD.com was listed on NASDAQ in the US in May 2014. The company’s businesses have also expanded into retail, technology, logistics, health, insurance, property, and international business, among others. To date, JD.com has hundreds of thousands of full-time employees and owns a nationwide network of smart supply chain infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Xu was promoted to president in September 2021. In this position, he was in charge of the operation and collaborative development of various business units of the company. Before that, Xu held various senior roles in the company, including CEO of JD Retail, CMO of JD.com, head of JD Wireless and head of marketing department. Xu joined the company in 2009. During his tenure as CEO of JD Retail, Xu formulated the business philosophy of “trust-based and customer-centric value creation,” led JD Retail to achieve growth for consecutive years, and guided the visionary moves to develop the supply chain middle platform and omnichannel strategy, which accelerated the cultivation of the company’s future growth drivers.

In addition, Xu established the company's marketing and public relations system and the platform operation system, and propelled JD’s mobile-based transformation. Xu also led the launch of JD 618 Grand Promotion and drove the opening-up of JD’s supply chain capabilities to empower the society.

Last September, JD.com announced a series of senior promotions to strengthen its service offerings and allow Liu to work on the company's long-term strategies. According to the company, the changes allowed Liu to focus on other areas, such as formulating the company’s long-term strategies, mentoring younger management, and contributing to the revitalisation of rural areas.

For example, at that time, Xin Lijun was promoted to CEO of JD Retail. He joined the company in October 2012 and prior to this promotion, he served as an executive director and CEO of JD Health International. In this role, JD.com said Xin had successfully established the business from scratch and made a significant contribution to making JD Health the “go-to health management platform for everyone in China”. Prior to serving as CEO of JD Health, Xin was in charge of JD.com’s marketplace business, and was subsequently in charge of different business units of JD Retail.

Tech companies in China have been facing senior management reshuffle in recent years. In January 2022, Alibaba Group chairman Daniel Zhang left the board at Weibo and replacing him was Chris Tung who is currently the CMO of Alibaba Group. Tung was also previously CEO of VML China and served as vice president of marketing at PepsiCo China.

In a statement then, Weibo said Zhang resigned from the board of directors, effective on 10 January 2022. The company said it would like to express its gratitude to him for his contributions and his services during his tenure as a director of the company. Weibo added that Tung has "valuable and relevant qualifications and experience that qualify him to succeed Zhang".

Tech companies in China have been facing changes in 2021 and leadership shuffles. For example, Kuaishou's CEO Su Hua left the position in November and was replaced by co-founder Cheng Yixiao. With the move, Su will devote more time to formulating the company's long-term strategies and exploring new initiatives. Kuaishou said in a statement on 29 October 2021 that Su ceased to serve as CEO of the company but he will continue serving as the chairman of the board, an executive director and a member of the remuneration committee. 

ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming also stepped down as chairman of the company in November, and he is said to be staying on with the company to help formulate the company's longer-term strategy. CEO Liang Rubo will now replace Zhang on the five-member board which includes representatives from several investors such as Susquehanna International Group and Sequoia Capital China. The shuffle came shortly after ByteDance announced leadership changes in May with Zhang then CEO handing the title over to co-founder and HR head Liang.

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