Alibaba Group chairman Jack Ma has stepped down today from the Chinese firm he started. The flamboyant chairman was known for his charismatic leadership and big change in career, as he founded Alibaba 20 years ago in a shared apartment in eastern China. He was an English teacher when he started the company.
Daniel Zhang, the successor that was carefully selected by Ma, has the intimidating task of guiding the $460 billion company. He will be both the CEO and executive chairman. Currently, the e-commerce business has slowed down its momentum. One of the new challenges for Zhang, will be to find new growth areas as the market is maturing.
Ma is a recognizable face behind an extremely famous company. Most technical companies have leaders who are the public face of the firm. For example, Bill Gates from Microsoft, Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook, Jeff Bezos from Amazon, Elon Musk from Tesla and Steve Jobs from Apple. When thinking about one of these companies, an image of their leader comes to mind. Strong companies have strong leaders. CEOs come and go, but founders are forever. Nothing builds a self-expressive benefit brand more effectively than the constant personification of the brand in the form of one person, especially the founder (Galloway, 2017).
Visionary leaders inspire their company to look beyond the IT label and change the way they work with technology. I believe Ma is a visionary leader that bridges the gap between technology and business. Even though his vision on work-life balance might be different than other great leaders, he was able to connect the Chinese e-commerce marketplace to the most innovative technologies, like AI, blockchain and including services like Alipay. Senior executives from both tech and business silos are the crucial in helping their companies shift the mindset. They can clearly understand the direction they want to head to and the important role of technology along the way (MIT, 2019).
It’s rare however, that the founder of such a large and transformative tech firm is retiring this early. Ma will continue to mentor management and will focus on philanthropy and education.
Galloway, S. 2017. The four: the hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. Transworld Publishers, London.
Horwitz, J. 2019. Alibaba set for big challenge as flamboyant chairman Ma departs. Reuters.
https://in.reuters.com/article/alibaba-jackma/alibaba-set-for-big-challenge-as-flamboyant-chairman-ma-departs-idINKCN1VU0V8
MIT Sloan Review. 2019. Bridging the leadership gap between tech and business.
https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/bridging-the-leadership-gap-between-tech-and-business/
Togoh, I. 2019. Jack Ma marks Alibaba retirement with Rockstar party. Forbes.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/2019/09/11/jack-ma-marks-alibaba-retirement-with-rockstar-party/#506e7c041a62
