Alibaba Group announced on Tuesday that Eddie Wu, the current chairman of Taobao and Tmall Group, will become the CEO, replacing Daniel Zhang, effective September 10. Zhang will also step down from his role as chairman of the board, with Joseph C. Tsai taking over as the new chairman. With a worth of $238 billion, Alibaba is the third-most valuable company in China, following Tencent and Kweichow Moutai.
In March, Alibaba revealed its plans to split into six separate groups, with Taobao and Tmall Group being one of them, led by Wu. After stepping down as CEO, Zhang will lead Alibaba’s Cloud Intelligence Group as chairman and CEO. Eddie Wu, the incoming CEO, has maintained a low media profile.
He graduated from Zhejiang University of Technology with a bachelor’s degree in computer science in 1996. Wu is one of the co-founders of Alibaba and currently serves as a senior vice president overseeing various business units, including mobile, instant messaging, and music. He is known as Alibaba’s first programmer. Insider’s request for comment from Alibaba was not immediately answered.
