Source: Beijing News
Jack Ma
Zhang Yong
On September 10, Jack Ma issued an open letter saying that he would step down as chairman of the board of directors of Alibaba Group on September 10, 2019. At that time, the current CEO of the group Zhang Yong will take over and the organization's transition preparations will begin today. 2019 marks the 20th anniversary of Alibaba's establishment, and the company once said that it "live at least 102 years."
Jack Ma announced the above decision on his 54th birthday. In the letter, he said, "I want to return to education." After graduating from university in 1988, Jack Ma taught at Hangzhou Electronics Industry College. Later, he started his business in China Yellow Pages in 1995 and established Alibaba for the second time in 1999.
Jack Ma’s successor - 46-year-old Zhang Yong, joined Alibaba in 2007. He has served as Taobao CFO, Tmall president, and group COO. He has served as the group CEO since 2015. During his tenure at Tmall, Zhang Yong created the "Double 11" shopping festival. Jack Ma said that in more than three years, Zhang Yong has led Alibaba to achieve healthy and sustainable growth in performance for 13 consecutive quarters.
More than people close to Alibaba told reporters that Jack Ma’s adjustment has been planned for a long time, but it’s just a matter of time. On September 10, Alibaba Pictures closed at HK$0.89, down 1.11%; Alibaba Health closed at HK$7.40, down 5.73%; US stocks fell 1.46% before the market opened. After the opening, Alibaba's stock price fell immediately. As of 11:00 last night, the stock price was US$156.38, down 3.69%. In an internal letter, Jack Ma said that he will continue to serve as a member of the board of directors after his position is handed over until the 2020 Alibaba Annual Shareholders Meeting.
For this adjustment, Jack Ma said that he had carefully considered and prepared a plan for 10 years. Ten years ago, Alibaba established a partnership mechanism, and its partners were generally senior executives of Alibaba. Although they did not hold most of the company's shares, they had the right to nominate the board of directors and interim directors. On this basis, Alibaba has formed a corporate culture and successor system driven by mission values.
As the basis of the inheritance plan, the partnership system has been in operation for 8 years. In September 2009, Jack Ma announced that 18 founders (the "Eighteen Arhats") including himself collectively resigned from their ranks and switched to the partnership system. As of February 2017, Alibaba disclosed 36 partners, and the permanent partners were only Jack Ma and , Cai Chongxin and .
At present, Zhang Yong and Alibaba's first-line business presidents are generally born in the 1970s, including Tmall president Jingjie , Alibaba Cloud President Hu Xiaoming , B2B business group president Dai Shan , Cultural and Entertainment Group rotating president Yang Weidong, Cainiao Network president Wan Lin , etc., and Ant Financial and CEO Jing Xiandong was born in 1972.
In November 2016, Jack Ma proposed the concept of "five new" (new retail, new manufacturing, new finance, new technology, and new energy) at the Yunqi Conference. In July 2017, Jack Ma sent an email to all members of the Alibaba Group, announcing the establishment of the "Five New" executive committee. The members included the heads of the main business lines of the Alibaba Group, Zhang Yong as chairman, and Ant Financial CEO Jing Xiandong as vice chairman, and the members included many management and partners.
Most of these specific business decision makers grew up in Alibaba's cultivation and inheritance system, and these practices also continued to the subsequent adjustment of Alibaba's organizational structure. In December 2017, Zhang Yong announced the appointment of Jiang Fan as the president of Taobao. This is the first time that a post-80s generation has entered Alibaba's management. In 2013, Jiang Fan entered the Alibaba system due to the acquisition of Youmeng.
"Repair a house on a sunny day" - the time to choose Jack Ma's resignation?
In the open letter, Jack Ma said that Alibaba has "enough confidence and ability" to welcome the handover of the chairman of the board, which marks that Alibaba has completed the upgrade of the enterprise system from relying on personal characteristics to relying on organizational mechanisms and talent culture. Some securities industry insiders said that Jack Ma believes that even without him, Alibaba can continue to develop with its management system and management team.
Alibaba usually adjusts when its business develops rapidly to continuously patch up its own management problems. A former Alibaba executive told reporters, "'Building a house on a sunny day' is Jack Ma's usual practice. The company's business developed rapidly in 2013, but external recruitment was once stagnant in order to control the number of employees."
Although Alibaba ultimately failed to IPO, Alibaba invested in Weibo, invested in Gaode, and won UC that year, making it one of the hottest Internet companies. At that time, it was reported that Alibaba's valuation had reached US$125 billion.
In this year, Jack Ma stepped down as CEO of Alibaba and handed over Lu Zhaoxi . At the end of 2013, Lu Zhaoxi, then CEO, said that he would transfer personnel and resources to strengthen the wireless team and also required that all employees' work goals should be related to wireless. Alibaba has begun one of the largest transformations in its development history, aiming at mobile.
In March 2014, Alibaba's organizational structure was adjusted. Zhang Yong, then COO, was in charge of Alibaba Wireless, and was not directly managed by Lu Zhaoxi, which sowed the seeds for future succession.
In 2018, Alibaba has undergone major changes, but it almost replicated the scene in 2013. Taobao has introduced artificial intelligence technology, expanded users in third- and fourth-tier and rural areas, acquired , Ele.me, and Zhongtianwei, and developed dedicated edge computing software for the Internet of Things, etc. Alibaba's internal innovation and external investment have been continuously disclosed.
As of the fiscal year 2018, Alibaba's total revenue reached US$39.898 billion, a year-on-year increase of 58%; net profit under non-US GAAP was US$13.266 billion, a year-on-year increase of 44%; annual active consumers reached RMB552 million, an increase of 98 million compared with the same period in 2017.
In 2017, Alibaba's organizational structure completed a round of adjustments, and many Alibaba executives completed their rotation. At the end of the year, Yu Yongfu, who was once believed to be resigning from his position as chairman of Dawen Entertainment, president of Dawen Entertainment and Gaode, and became the leader of the eWTP investment group and chairman of Gaode.
After the start of 2018, the adjustment has become more in-depth, and Alibaba has completed the largest VIE architecture patching to date. According to the annual report of the 2018 fiscal year, most of the shares of 4 of the five VIEs, Taobao, Tmall, Alibaba Cloud, B2B and Cainiao, are owned by Jack Ma and Xie Shihuang and , but now these VIE holding companies will eventually be controlled by Alibaba's senior management and will eventually be completed in 2019.
, a series of performance and structural adjustments, have become the basis for Jack Ma to announce his future destination.
Jack Ma fades out of Alibaba? The proportion of voting rights is still considerable
Leaving office does not mean that Jack Ma will retire. He is currently the spokesperson for rural teachers, chairman of Alibaba Poverty Alleviation Fund, founder of Jack Ma's public welfare fund, and special consultant for youth entrepreneurship and small businesses of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. In addition, Alibaba still has a large number of Jack Ma imprints.
financial report shows that as of July 19, Jack Ma held 6.4% of Alibaba Group's common stock, and Vice Chairman Cai Chongxin held 2.3% of the company's shares. Except for Ma and Cai, all directors held 0.8% of the shares as a whole. As an institutional holder, SoftBank holds 28.8% of the shares, while Altaba holds 14.8%. However, according to the agreement, Jack Ma and Alibaba's senior executives still have absolute voting rights.
htmlOn August 29, industrial and commercial data showed that the legal person of Alipay (China) Information Technology Co., Ltd. had changed, Jack Ma no longer served as the company's legal person, and Ye Yuqing and were replaced as chairman and general manager, and Cai Chongxin also withdrew from the position of director. However, Jack Ma is still a legal person in five companies, holds senior executive positions in 47 companies, and serves as a shareholder in 25 business companies.In addition, Qixinbao shows that most of the companies related to Alibaba and Jack Ma include the three words "Zhen", "Jun" and "Yun", and these companies are also making low-key adjustments.
Among them, most of the "Zhen" system has completed adjustments, and its shareholders can trace upwards Zhang Yong, Zhao Ying, Zheng Junfang, Tong Wenhong and Shao Xiaofeng, all of whom are Alibaba partners. The department replaces Jack Ma and Xie Shihuang, general manager of Alibaba Investment Division, as a shareholder status in Tmall, Alibaba Cloud and Hangzhou Alibaba Technology Co., Ltd., as well as Shanghai Lazas (Ele.me).
"Jun" system penetrates downward, and it can be found that it is related to Ant Financial, but currently only Hangzhou Junhan's natural person shareholders include Jack Ma. The "jun" system is about to penetrate upward, which is related to Hangzhou Yunbo Investment Consulting Co., Ltd., and Jack Ma is the sole shareholder of the latter. In addition to Yunbo Investment, the "cloud" system also includes Shanghai Yunfeng and Hangzhou Yunhuang.
Despite this, Jack Ma said in an open letter on the 10th, "I want to return to education. Doing what I love will make me extremely excited and happy."Alibaba disclosed that Jack Ma will focus on education, poverty alleviation, environmental protection and public welfare in the future, and help small and medium-sized enterprises, young people and women develop.
Characters
Jack Ma who enters and leaves the "teacher circle"
Teacher Ma is the identity Ma likes to be mentioned the most besides the founder of Alibaba. "Teachers are my favorite profession." He has worked as a teacher at Hangzhou Electronics Institute (now Hangzhou Electronics Technology University ) for 6 years.
September 10 this year is the 34th Teachers' Day in my country. Jack Ma issued an open letter at 9:10 am that day, announcing that he would hand over the position of Chairman of Alibaba to Zhang Yong a year later and he would devote himself to the cause of education.
Beijing News reporter Ren Jiao Liang Chen
As early as 2015, he planned to build a post-70s team
This is not the first time Jack Ma handed over the shift.
Since 2010, Jack Ma was physically and mentally exhausted after experiencing many storms in Alipay and Taobao Mall (later renamed Tmall). "I was in poor health this year (2011), and I also had a lot of time," Jack Ma said in an interview with Mr. Fashion.
On January 15, 2013, Jack Ma announced that he had planned a moment: no longer serve as CEO, Lu Zhaoxi, who was a hotel waiter and named "fire-fighting captain". In his appointment letter, Jack Ma said that Lu Zhaoxi was familiar with the group's various businesses and had impressive execution.
On May 7, 2015, Alibaba Group announced that Zhang Yong replaced Lu Zhaoxi as CEO. Some industry insiders said that Lu Zhaoxi's "dismissal" was related to his failure in wireless business, especially in the relationship, which used many of Jack Ma's resources. However, it has not been confirmed by the authorities at present.
Even if Alibaba CEO changes, Jack Ma is still the core. Unlike Jack Ma, who is eloquent, Lu Zhaoxi is silent and low-key. So much so that on the day when Jack Ma announced his handover, entrepreneurs from the audience applauded warmly when he gave a speech, and when Lu Zhaoxi started his speech, some people stood up and left the venue one after another.
is similar to the CEO who stepped down five years ago. This time, Jack Ma is still the executive chairman and supports the inheritance plan for some time, rather than the "resignation" or "retirement" expressed in previous media reports. A spokesperson for Alibaba called the latter "taken out of context."
Jack Ma’s several “Friends Circle”
During the Wuzhen Internet Conference in the past two years, Jack Ma was not seen either Ding Lei’s dinner or “Dongxing” dinner. When the public suspected that Jack Ma was excluded, Jack Ma responded: Boring.
In fact, Jack Ma’s circle is not in the small Wuzhen.
His first one is in the Internet circle. After returning to Hangzhou from Beijing in the early years, Jack Ma invited industry leaders to start the "West Lake Sword Contest". Later, Jack Ma became an industry leader and the event was suspended.
The second one is in the film and television industry. CCTV filmed a documentary for Jack Ma many years ago. The producer at that time was Fan Xinman , and her husband was Zhang Jizhong . Because of Zhang Jizhong, Jack Ma met with senior executives of Huayi Brothers and later became its vice chairman. Alibaba's strategic investment in the entertainment business is also closely related to this circle. Stars such as Gao Xiaosong, Faye Wong, and Jet Li all have dates with Jack Ma.
The third one is Zhejiang Business District. Jack Ma and Lu Guanqiu's son Lu Weiding were in Huayi, and later jointly initiated the investment in the Jiangnan Association. Shen Guojun, the Yintai Department Store, who had close contact with him, was also a Zhejiang businessman.
In addition, Jack Ma has also established a circle around investment. Based on the most important ally, SoftBank Masayoshi Sun , Jack Ma met with SoftBank’s most successful investment project Yahoo, and Cisco Chambers, who was the first to invest in SoftBank. Four years later, this circle gradually expanded, and Sina Cao Guowei , Suning Zhang Jindong, Evergrande Xu Jiayin and others entered the circle one after another.
After Alibaba launched its internationalization strategy, Jack Ma ran around the world and received reception from politicians from many countries, including former US Presidents Clinton and Obama , Belgian King Philip, former British Prime Minister Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper , etc.
In addition, Lakeside University led by Jack Ma gathered a group of new generation of Chinese entrepreneurs, rural teacher support projects, nature conservation plans and other public welfare projects, and also formed a specific public welfare circle.
Teachers to the godfather of entrepreneurship, and then to the teacher
Jack Ma, who "regrets starting a business", once said in his speech that for business, "I originally wanted to play for two years, but I have been doing it for 20 years."
Teacher Ma is Jack Ma’s favorite identity to be mentioned besides Alibaba’s position.
In 1984, Jack Ma was admitted to the English major of the Department of Foreign Languages at Hangzhou Normal University. After graduation, he worked as a teacher at Hangzhou Electronics Institute (now Hangzhou Electronics and Technology University) for 6 years.
Jack Ma is a "different" teacher. He was imaginative when he was teaching. He would talk about foreign cultures and customs in class, talk about his understanding of life and society, and "gossip" about embarrassing things in a colleague's life. During his short teaching career, he established Haibo Translation Club, contacted foreign teachers and learned about the Internet. At the same time, I also gained the initial employees from my students.
Public report shows that Jiang Fang , one of Alibaba's 18 founders, is Jack Ma's student. She recalled that Jack Ma quickly "lighted the classroom warmly" and would sit on the podium when it came to the rise.
After resigning as CEO in 2013, Jack Ma began to plan his future charity undertakings. In 2014, Jack Ma established the Jack Ma Charity Foundation in his personal name. Rural education is the focus of the foundation. Jack Ma only marked one identity on Weibo - the spokesperson for rural teachers.
Although the successor has been arranged, Jack Ma "retreats and never rests". He is still an employee and partner of Alibaba's "No. 000001". He is also the chairman of Alibaba's Poverty Alleviation Fund... Education, poverty alleviation, environmental protection, and public welfare are all causes that he has devoted himself to and will be more devoted to for a long time.
As he said in the open letter, "I want to return to education. Doing what I love will make me extremely excited and happy."
Zhang Yong: The man behind Jack Ma
Zhang Yong, born in 1972, from Shanghai, current CEO of Alibaba Group, nicknamed Xiaoyaozi . Within Alibaba, everyone calls him "Lao Xiao".
Every time Double 11 Shopping Festival, the shopping maniac who clears his shopping cart with tears will always post a circle of friends, crying that everyone is the woman behind Jack Ma. These shopping seldom know that Zhang Yong is the one who created Tmall and "Double 11" and that he is the man behind Jack Ma.
Beijing News reporter Ren Jiao
Ma Yun likes to mention Ele.me, Zhang Yong is the actual trader
In 1995, Zhang Yong graduated from Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. Before joining Alibaba, he served as a senior manager of the audit and corporate consulting department at Shanghai PricewaterhouseCoopers, and later as Chief Financial Officer of Shanda Interactive Entertainment.
In 2007, Zhang Yong joined Alibaba as the CFO of Taobao and is still mainly responsible for finance. But the transformation from behind the scenes to front-stage happened in the second year after Zhang Yong arrived in Alibaba.
In September 2017, when Zhang Yong returned to his alma mater to give a speech, he recalled the scene when he took over Taobao Mall (later renamed Tmall) as the general manager. At that time, Taobao Mall was not so smooth at the beginning. The person in charge left and no one cared about the business. He and Lu Zhaoxi, who was known as "Temujin", said, "I will help to take care of it."
In the process of "helping", he had to find a way to make the business survive, so he inexplicably had the idea of "Double 11" Singles' Day. A few years later, Jack Ma told him that the business is getting bigger and bigger, and you must choose one of the CFOs and business general managers. There is no doubt that Zhang Yong chose a more interesting business job and ended more than ten years of financial work. In the following years, Alibaba, led by Zhang Yong, gradually developed from an e-commerce platform to a digital economy that influences and shapes future business infrastructure.
Many of Alibaba's major investment decisions were also led by Zhang Yong, including Suning, Intime, Hema, investing in Gaoxin Retail, acquiring Ele.me, etc. Although every time Alibaba invests abroad, the outside world always likes to be titled "Jack Ma likes to win XX", the actual trader has always been Zhang Yong.
Where does Jack Ma’s trust come from?
Jack Ma chose Zhang Yong, and his seemingly sudden announcement was behind the trust accumulated over 10 years.
In the third year Zhang Yong was CEO, Alibaba's performance remained at a high speed. The recently released financial report for fiscal year 2018 showed that Alibaba's revenue growth reached 58%, setting a record high growth rate since its listing.
Ali is making rapid progress.Above Jack Ma’s philosophy, Zhang Yong has upgraded his definition of Alibaba.
Jack Ma’s ideal definition of Alibaba is: “Let there be no difficult business in the world”; Zhang Yong’s definition of Alibaba’s mission is: “In the digital economy era, let there be no difficult business in the world.”
Zhang Yong once proposed that Alibaba’s medium-term goal is to reach US$1 trillion by 2020, and the long-term goal is to serve 2 billion consumers around the world, 10 million profitable small businesses, and create 100 million job opportunities by 2036.
In June this year, the Chinese Entrepreneur Magazine's exclusive interview with Zhang Yong began: Alibaba's Zhang Yong's taste is getting stronger and stronger. After joining Alibaba for 11 years, Zhang Yong has indeed influenced Alibaba's overall strategy and direction with his unique style.
Ali invested in Gaoxin Retail for HK$22.4 billion at the end of 2017, and Huang Mingduan, chairman of RT-Mart, has never seen Jack Ma until now. From the beginning to the end, he was Zhang Yong.
Jack Ma once said that the heavens are not afraid of the earth, but the CFO is afraid of being CEO. In Zhang Yong's path from CFO to CEO, Jack Ma delivered great trust.
In the open letter of "handover", Jack Ma highly praised Zhang Yong: handing over Alibaba's relay torch to him and the team he led is the most correct decision for Jack Ma and Alibaba's partners.
Xiaoyaozi's life is not planned
Ali's wolf-like culture, Zhang Yong appears elegant and gentle every time he appears. Zhang Yong once said, "In essence, I am a not very at ease, and Alibaba has allowed me to find the 'true self'."
In his speech at the alma mater, Zhang Yong said that his life was not planned. "From graduating from Shanghai University of Finance and Economics to today, I have never planned what I want in the future. I just thought about what I want in some stages and moments." Zhang Yong said that looking back on the past twenty years, there are indeed several more critical moments and decisions, but these links and decisions have their own internal commonalities.
Zhang Yong's life was not planned, and it was also very accidental. It was inevitable. When the Internet appeared, Zhang Yong quit his job at PwC and went to Shanda. Two years later, he arrived at Alibaba. "E-commerce had just begun at that time, and I think everyone needs e-commerce."
According to the circulating within Alibaba, Zhang Yong was "a person who changed the engine on the highway, and he replaced the tractor with a Boeing 747." Alibaba, which he led, has long surpassed e-commerce companies and has completely transformed into a digital economy driven by big data and e-commerce, finance, logistics, cloud computing, and entertainment, serving hundreds of millions of consumers and tens of millions of small and medium-sized enterprises.
A year later, when Zhang Yong officially took over Alibaba, the question before him was: How to drive this Boeing 747 that was moving at a super high speed? (Reporter Liang Chen)
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