A Look Into Alibaba's Biggest Org Shuffle in Recent History

Alibaba is re-assigning four roles in its top leadership department, the biggest reorganization the Chinese conglomerate has done in years, according to an announcement the company posted Monday.

Former Chief Financial Officer Maggie Wu is stepping down next April and will be replaced by Toby Xu, the current deputy CFO. Wu will continue her role at Alibaba Partnership, a separate and exclusive group of executives that have significant influence on the company’s direction and will also remain as an executive director on the Alibaba Board.

Along with the CFO shakeup, Alibaba is doubling down on its strategy to run a dual-headed domestic and international operation.

In a letter to employees, Alibaba Group Chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang outlined the new plan to form a new International Digital Commerce department, which covers its international consumer-facing and wholesale business and will be led by Jiang Fan. The newly-formed China Digital Commerce unit will be led by Alibaba veteran Trudy Dai and combines China’s consumer-facing and wholesale marketplaces.

“We will continue to focus on becoming a truly globalized company, and we believe that overseas markets present many exciting potential and opportunities for us to capture,” CEO Daniel Zhang said in the letter. “We have confidence in our local teams, and we are charting a path forward with a holistic strategic blueprint and organizational stability for winning our overseas markets.”

Here, The Org explores the careers of the newly selected leaders at Alibaba and dives deep into the rest of its org chart to see who else is steering the billion-dollar e-commerce giant.

Former CFO Maggie Wu has been instrumental in guiding three public listings at Alibaba in her 15 year tenure: First for the company’s B2B marketplace Alibaba.com on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2007, as well as the Alibaba Group Holding on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014 and again on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2019.

Wu has weathered massive reorganizations at the company before, like in 2015 when Alibaba founder Jack Ma passed on the CEO torch to Daniel Zhang. Her succession plan has been in the works for many years, according to a company press release, and Xu was the obvious contender as he stepped in as Deputy CFO in July 2019.

“The markets will always have ups and downs, but Alibaba has ambitious long-term goals,” Wu said in a statement. “We are in a relay race and we must have new generations of talent to take the company forward. I trust Toby even more than I trusted myself when I first took up the CFO position years ago.”

Xu joined Alibaba in 2018 after 11 years with the accounting firm PwC. His responsibilities at his new job quickly grew to include Alibaba’s strategic investments, financial management and operations.

He serves as a director of Sun Art Retail Group, Lianhua Supermarket Holdings and Red Star Macalline Group. He is also a member of the Chinese Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

The newly-formed International Digital Commerce Unit will be led by Jiang Fan. Fan ran two of Alibaba’s most successful consumer marketplaces, Taobao and Tmall, for more than seven years. In his tenure, he transformed the two businesses into a mobile-first commerce ecosystem and added innovative user experience, like personalization and content-driven engagement.

Before Alibaba, Fan was the founder and CEO of leading mobile analytics solutions company Umeng. His background working in both mobile commerce and entrepreneurship was noted for his new role in the combined international business unit. The new unit will cover Southeast Asia-focused commerce companies Lazada (which Alibaba acquired in 2016) and Daraz, as well as a Turkey counterpart, Trendyol.

Last up in the org redesign is the merger of the firm’s domestic consumer-oriented businesses with its wholesale operations. This will be led by company veteran Trudy Dai as the China Digital Commerce unit.

An Alibaba founding member and partner, Dai has served in various leadership roles within the company over the years. Her expertise lies in the China consumption sector and she has a deep understanding of consumer needs and deep knowledge of the Alibaba ecosystem. From 2014 to 2017, she served as Alibaba’s Chief Customer Officer, and before that was leading various different business units across the company’s critical corporate functions.

Since 2017, she’s been serving as President of Alibaba’s Industrial E-commerce, which includes Alibaba.com, 1688.com, AliExpress and Taobao deals. In March 2021, she became president of Alibaba’s community grocery delivery service Taocaicai.

“We believe Trudy’s deep experience and understanding of the China market, exceptional leadership skills and unique insights as a female leader will help drive Alibaba’s continued market leadership in the China consumption sector,” Zhang said in a statement.

The rest of the C-suite and Alibaba’s operations seem to mirror that of its American competitor Amazon. Luyuan Fan runs the company’s film studio and digital media and entertainment division. Jeff Zhang has overseen the company’s cloud intelligence services since 2018, working his way up from various other consumer teams at the company. CTO Li Cheng runs the substantial engineering organization at Alibaba and previously held the same role at Ant Group.

For the rest of the Alibaba leadership team, explore the full organizational chart here.