Alibaba Group CEO Daniel Zhang is set to step down from his roles and focus exclusively on the company’s cloud business. Joseph C. Tsai will take over as chairman, and Eddie Wu will become CEO.
The move comes as Alibaba is undergoing a major organizational restructure. The company is splitting into six business entities, each with its own CEO and board of directors. Zhang was named CEO and chairman of the cloud business in March, in addition to his roles as overall group CEO and chairman.
Zhang said the move was necessary amid “challenges and opportunities” in an uncertain economic landscape. He pointed to cloud as one of three strategic focus areas for the company.
And tha the transition was “the right time” given the importance of Alibaba’s cloud business as the spinoff plans took shape. He added that the emergence of generative artificial intelligence (AI) had opened up new opportunities that the cloud business was “well-positioned” to capture.
Incoming CEO Wu was CTO of Alipay since December 2004 and chief architect of Alibaba’s technology platforms, including the Taobao mobile app. He was the technology director at the company’s inception in 1999. The succession plan will roll out over the next few months, with the new appointments to kick in starting Sept. 10 this year.
The sorry for this piece include an article in ZDNet.
