Alibaba Vice President Replaces Founder as Chief

Mr. Ma, 48, announced in January that he was stepping down as chief executive officer to make way for younger leaders. He has stayed on as chairman.

Jonathan Lu Zhaoxi, a 13-year veteran of the company, will take over in May as chief executive, said the company, based in the eastern city of Hangzhou.

“He is passionate about and familiar with the group’s various businesses,” Mr. Ma said in the announcement. “Not only has he contributed to building our culture and organization and developed many talented people, he also possesses a unique leadership style and charisma.”

Mr. Ma, a former English teacher, founded Alibaba in 1999 to link Chinese suppliers with retailers abroad. The company has expanded in consumer e-commerce with its Taobao and Tmall platforms, which are among the busiest online outlets in the world.

Mr. Ma is part of a generation of Chinese Internet entrepreneurs who built successful businesses in e-commerce, entertainment, search and other fields.

In addition to Mr. Ma, several other people have become billionaires, including Robin Li of the search giant Baidu and Ma Huateng of Tencent, an entertainment and Web portal company.

Mr. Lu, who joined Alibaba in 2000, was the founding president of its online payment service, Alipay, and worked at Taobao, the company said.

Alibaba announced a reorganization in January to split its seven units into 25 divisions, to compete more effectively in China’s turbulent Internet market.

China has the biggest population of Internet users in the world, with 564 million people online at the end of 2012, according to an industry group, the China Internet Network Information Center.

The country trails the United States and Japan in e-commerce spending, but the Boston Consulting Group expects China to take over the No. 1 position by 2015.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/12/technology/alibaba-vice-president-replaces-founder-as-chief.html?partner=rss&emc=rss