The new CEO of Alibaba Group, Eddie Wu, has disclosed that “User first” and “AI-driven” will be the two key strategic goals moving forward for the digital giant.
On his third day in charge, Wu declared that Alibaba would prioritise elevating young workers—specifically, those born after 1985—to become the nucleus of its business management teams over the following four years.
This would help maintain a “start-up mindset” and prevent the company from getting “stuck in our old ways”, he said.
The incoming CEO, a founding member of the Alibaba Group and a longtime aide to outgoing CEO Jack Ma is outlining his strategic ambitions at a crucial time for Alibaba, which is going through the most significant organisational restructuring in its 24-year history.
Late on Sunday, Alibaba also disclosed that Wu would succeed Daniel Zhang as CEO of its cloud computing division.
Many people were surprised by the revelation because Zhang had announced in June that he was stepping down as CEO of Alibaba Group to concentrate on the cloud division, which aims to go public by May 2024.
The Cloud Intelligence Group is one of five divisions that Alibaba is spinning off as part of its restructuring, with a valuation of $41 billion to $60 billion this year.
The cloud division, which houses the Tongyi Qianwen generative artificial intelligence model for the firm, is Alibaba’s second-largest revenue generator after domestic e-commerce.
Alibaba surpassed analyst forecasts in its first-quarter profits report last month, but the combination of problems of growing competition and a slowing Chinese economy have made it difficult for the company to recover from a two-year regulatory crackdown.
