Alibaba shifts top leadership amid restructuring plan

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group has announced the appointment of Eddie Yongming Wu as the chief executive officer of the group and chairman of Taobao and Tmall Group, effective immediately.

Alongside this, Wu will also serve as chief executive officer of the two subsidiaries.

He replaces Daniel Zhang, who will be stepping down the group’s helm positions in order to focus on its cloud division, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group.

Zhang will also be replaced as chairman of the Alibaba board, with the role to now be passed on to one of the company’s directors, Joseph Tsai.

Alongside the leadership shifts, the firm has also said that it will form a new asset management company focusing on the management of its non-core assets as part of its “ongoing efforts to improve return on capital and enhance shareholder value”.

It comes as Alibaba continues on its plans to split the group into six divisions, each to gain the ability of raising capital and going public.

In a memo to staff seen by CNBC, Zhang said the cloud business was “now full speed ahead on its spin-off plans” as it approaches a crucial stage of the process.

He added: “From a corporate governance perspective, we also need clear separation between the board and management team as Cloud Intelligence Group proceeds down the path to becoming an independent public company. It would be inappropriate for me to continue serving as chairman and CEO of both companies at the same time during the spin-off process.”