Alibaba is currently going through a lot of things and we know that its founder Jack Ma returned to China earlier this year after a hiatus of almost a year. Since then, there have been a lot of surprise announcements from Alibaba and it is known that their shackles have also been removed by the Chinese authorities recently. Now, Alibaba’s CEO Daniel Zhang who was set to hand over his CEO position has also resigned from the Cloud unit of Alibaba which was definitely not planned.
Alibaba’s co-founder Tsai said, “Four years ago, when [Alibaba founder] Jack [Ma] passed the chairmanship torch to Daniel, he set in motion our commitment to an institutionalised succession system that supports a sustainable enterprise for centuries,” and added that “Today, Daniel has entrusted that torch to Eddie and me under the continuity of our system for leadership succession.” Tsai also added that the company decided it will “invest US$1 billion in a technology fund” established by Zhang. “The fund will support Alibaba’s strategy of investing for future growth and continuing to develop our technology ecosystem”. Also, Tsai informed everyone that the Alibaba Partnership will give Zhang the distinguished title of “Aliren Emeritus”.
In a statement, Alibaba’s spokesperson informed everyone that “Alibaba’s new CEO Eddie Wu Yongming, who like Tsai assumed his new role on Sunday, has also taken over for Zhang as acting chairman and CEO of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group on the same day”. Alibaba’s spokesperson said Alibaba “will continue to execute its previously announced plan to spin off Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group under a separate management team to be appointed”. However, the news of Daniel Zhang’s sudden departure wasn’t received well by the market as “shares of Alibaba Group slipped 2.8 percent to HK$88.25 as of 9.45 am local time, the most since August 18”. Earlier this year, Daniel Zhang was already announced to be departing as the CEO later on but his departure from Cloud unit definitely came as a surprise. In June, Alibaba announced that “Zhang would resign as Alibaba CEO and chairman, but would stay on as head of the cloud unit “given the importance of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group as it progresses towards a full spin-off””
