Joseph Tsai, executive vice chairman of Alibaba Group, speaks to journalists during Alibaba’s 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, also known as Singles Day, in Shanghai, China, on Nov. 11, 2018. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)
HONG KONG — China’s Alibaba Group has announced a major management reshuffle aimed at spurring the e-commerce giant’s growth at a time when the Chinese economy is slowing despite an end to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions a half-year ago.
Eddie Wu, chairman of its e-commerce group, will succeed Daniel Zhang as CEO, the company said in a statement Tuesday.
Zhang will be CEO and chairman of Alibaba’s cloud computing unit, which has been approved to be spun off and is expected to be listed for trading within a year.
Alibaba’s current executive vice chairman, Joseph Tsai, is to succeed Zhang as chairman of the Alibaba Group. Tsai, who owns the NBA basketball team Brooklyn Nets, is a Taiwan-born Canadian citizen and helped to found Alibaba in the late 1990s.
The changes take effect Sept. 10.
Zhang became Alibaba Group’s CEO in 2015 and succeeded Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma as chairman in 2019.
“This is the right time for me to make a transition, given the importance of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group as it progresses towards a full spin-off,” Zhang said in a statement.
“I look forward to working closely with Joe and Eddie in the coming months to ensure a seamless transition.”
Alibaba in March announced plans to reshape itself into six business divisions with plans to allow all but its core e-commerce business to raise outside capital and go public.
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