Alibaba Group, a major player in Chinese e-commerce, unveiled a surprise succession plan on Tuesday. Eddie Yongming Wu, a seasoned e-commerce executive, will succeed Daniel Zhang as the company's CEO in accordance with this succession plan. When the succession plan is impacted, Zhang will devote all of his attention to the team's cloud intelligence section.
Zhang has been the CEO and chairman of the Alibaba Group since December. He is also the director of Alibaba's cloud intelligence division. According to a statement from the corporation, Zhang will be succeeded as chairman by Executive Vice Chairman Joseph Tsai.
This succession announcement follows the group's declaration in March of this year that it will divide the corporation into six business areas. The company's most major organisational restructuring in company history, according to Alibaba, would allow each business group to seek outside investment for expansion and go public.
"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 Joe and Eddie in the coming months to ensure a seamless transition," Zhang said in a statement.
Regarding Wu, Joseph Tsai stated that the former played a key role in creating the business's technology-based platforms. Eddie Wu oversaw the development of the main marketing platform for Taobao and Tmall, according to Tsai.
Eleanor Yongming Wu, one of Alibaba's co-founders, has served as chairman of the Taobao and Tmall Group since May of this year and is a member of the Alibaba Partnership. Wu also served as the organization's technology director when it first started in 1999. The Chinese business tycoon Jack Ma is another founding member of Alibaba. In 2020, Jack Ma vanished from the public glare after being accused of criticising Chinese regulators. Since that time, the erratic business tycoon has been visiting foreign countries and making very irregular trips to the Chinese mainland.
From December 2005 to December 2007, Wu held the position of chief technical officer at Alipay. In November, he was named business director of Alimama, Alibaba's monetization platform, and in December, he was elevated to general manager. He was appointed Taobao's chief technology officer in September 2008, and in October 2011 he was named head of the search, advertising, and mobile businesses for the Alibaba Group.
In addition, Wu held the positions of chairman of Alibaba Health from April 2015 to March 2020 and director of Alibaba Health Information Technology Limited from April 2015 to October 2021. He served as the board chairman of Alibaba Group's special assistant from September 2014 until September 2019.
He established Vision Plus Capital in August 2015, a venture capital firm that specialises in funding cutting-edge technologies, business services, and digital healthcare. In June 1996, he received his diploma from Zhejiang University of Technology's College of Information Engineering.
