Daniel Zhang
The one who took over Alibaba Completely
On his 54th birthday (Sep, 10), Alibaba founder Jack Ma made an announcement for his own retirement from the chairman. In a letter sent to users, workers, and shareholders, Ma explained that in one year, in 2019, the 20th anniversary, Daniel Zhang will succeed as chairman board of Alibaba Group. So, who is Daniel Zhang? In this post, we will be talking about him.
Introduction
Daniel Zhang is CEO of Alibaba Group since 2015 and has been working at the Alibaba Group more broadly for 11 years. At first, he was hired at Alibaba as its Chief Financial Officer, but his leadership skills made Jack Ma believe that he could be great CEO and Chairman of Alibaba group. Speaking of his influent, he was among the 100 most influential people in the world in 2020, as per Time’s list. His net worth is $1 Billion in 2021, as per Forbes Billionaire List.
Early life, hobbies, and Education
Daniel Zang was born On Jan, 11, 1972, in Shanghai, in a middle-class family, where his father was just an accountant. As far as his educational background, Zhang earned a degree in finance major from the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. To get a Batchelor degree in Finance, he may have been influenced by his father. Although, his father didn’t want him to take the same profession. He is also a Certified accountant, as per fortune. Daniel is a sports junkie and loves basketball in particular. He is a fan of the Houston Rockets as China’s Yao Ming played for the NBA team; the best NBA player in history is Reggie Miller.
Career and performance
After graduating with a finance major from such a prestigious college, he got a job at Barings Bank of UK, it was just before its bankruptcy due to one of the traders, 28-year-old Nick Leeson. In 1995, he left the bank started working for one of the top accounting firms Arthur Andersen, and worked till 2002. For the next three years, Zhang worked as a Senior Manager with PriceWaterhouseCoopers based out of his hometown Shanghai. After leaving the company in 2007, Danial Zhang worked with Shanda Interactive Entertainment Limited, a game developing company, as chief financial officer prior to joining Alibaba.
Working with a multi-different company, he got some great experience. In 2007, Daniel joined Taobao Marketplace, a subsidiary of Alibaba, as a Chief Financial Officer and worked till 2011. In the meantime, he accepted the additional role of the general manager for Tmall.com, which he performed concurrently until he appointed as a president of tmall in June 2011. When tmall.com became an independent platform.
Under his leadership, Tmall.com grew so much became one of Chain’s largest B2C marketplace. This led to Zhang’s elevation as CEO of Alibaba in 2015. His innovative skills and technological prowess were fundamental to the China-based company’s growth to become the most valuable e-commerce in the world. In Sep 2019, Jack Ma (founder and former CEO) stepped down and was nominated as his successor.
What made him different from other Alibaba leaders was his initiative to introduce 24/7 Sales Day on November 11, called the “Double 11” the event has become the largest online shopping event. In 2019, he set a record for generating more revenue than US Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined by promoting retail – generating a whopping $38.3 billion in revenue for Alibaba, recorded 25% higher than previous years.
About Alibaba group
Alibaba is Chain’s – and by some measures, the world’s – biggest e-commerce company. There are three main types of sites that come under the Alibaba group – Taobao, Tmall, and Alibaba.com and have hundreds of trustworthy consumers host millions of merchants and businesses. To give a brief understanding of company size, this is the 31st largest public company in the world in 2020, as per Forbes. Also, it is one of the largest venture capital firms in the world. The company was founded in 1999 by Jack Ma. Alibaba’s valuation in Oct 2020 was around $857B. Although, it was reduced to $588B in June 2021.
His Recognition
Owning to Zhang’s success and performance, Chinese media called him the country’s top CEO in 2018. Due to his cosmopolitan management style, he is also known as Xiaoyaozi, meaning ‘Free and unfettered one’ by his employees.
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