It is China’s biggest technology company, with businesses spanning e-commerce, cloud computing and entertainment. It controls a sizable mobile-payment network, and it is…
It is China’s biggest technology company, with businesses spanning e-commerce, cloud computing and entertainment. It controls a sizable mobile-payment network, and it is driving hard into new ventures built on quantum computing and artificial intelligence.
So, who is going to run the place after Jack Ma?
Mr. Ma is likely to lay out a broad plan for appointing the Hangzhou-based company’s top executives and grooming its future leaders, according to a person familiar with Mr. Ma’s thinking.
The person said the succession plan will involve the Alibaba Partnership, a group of 36 senior executives led by Mr. Ma with the right to nominate most of the company’s board of directors despite not holding a majority of shares.
The group will have the right to pick the majority of Alibaba’s board of directors, who will then be subject to shareholder approval, the person said, and this board will determine the company’s new senior leadership.
Members of the Partnership share a common chat group on Alibaba’s network and meet quarterly. Executive Vice Chairman Joe Tsai and Chief Executive Daniel Zhang are members. Others include Simon Hu, the head of Alibaba’s cloud-computing division, and Lucy Peng, who chairs its Lazada e-commerce unit in Southeast Asia.
Mr. Ma, believing that Alibaba would outlast its 18 founding members, established the Partnership about 10 years ago to help ensure the company’s mission and values wouldn’t be compromised, the person said.
New members undergo a thorough vetting process, including evaluations by those already in the exclusive club.
Mr. Ma believes the time is right for the succession plan to be announced, the person said, because Alibaba has a large pool of talented executives ready to take on more responsibility and a good system of corporate governance in place.
Mr. Ma, who stepped down as chief executive in 2013, hasn’t been present during quarterly earnings calls with investors, leaving Mr. Tsai, Mr. Zhang and Chief Financial Officer Maggie Wu to helm the call and field questions about the company.
