China’s largest e-commerce group Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) yesterday said it is appointing a new chief financial officer and reorganizing its e-commerce businesses amid a regulatory crackdown in the technology industry.
Toby Xu (徐宏) is to succeed Maggie Wu (武衛) as its new CFO from April 1 next year, the company said in a statement.
Xu joined Alibaba from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP three years ago and was appointed deputy group CFO in July 2019.
Photo: Reuters
Wu, who has been Alibaba’s CFO since 2013 and has helped lead three Alibaba-related company listings, would continue to serve as an executive director on Alibaba’s board.
She would also remain as a partner in the Alibaba Partnership — a group of senior executives who have the right to nominate a simple majority of Alibaba’s board of directors.
“We are focused on the long-term, and succession within our management team on every occasion is always in the service of ensuring Alibaba will be stronger and better positioned for the future,” Alibaba chairman and chief executive officer Daniel Zhang (張勇) said.
Separately, Alibaba said that it would be creating an international digital commerce team to handle its e-commerce businesses in international markets.
A China digital commerce team would be in charge of e-commerce operations inside China, a post on the company’s Alizila news hub said.
The Hangzhou-based firm was fined a record US$2.8 billion for antitrust contraventions and is under scrutiny as regulators step up oversight of the technology industry at a time when the economy is slowing.
Last month, Alibaba cut its sales outlook for the year amid mounting competition from rivals such as Pinduoduo Inc (拼多多). It expects growth for this year to be the slowest since it listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014.
Alibaba’s New York stock price has plunged more than 50 percent over the past 12 months. The company’s Hong Kong-traded shares were down 4.9 percent yesterday.
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