JACK Ma recently announced his retirement after leading Alibaba Group from a humble beginning back in his apartment 19 years ago to what is known as an e-commerce giant worth US$420 billion today.
Along with the announcement, Daniel Zhang was named as the successor of Ma as executive chairman of Alibaba.
Ma is notably the face of Alibaba, however, there are 17 other individuals who co-founded the e-commerce giant since its inception in 1999. But who are they?
iPrice Group has embarked on a research to uncover the 18 founding members of Alibaba, with some interesting insights. Among them, the co-founders were from diverse industries such as journalism, investment banking, web developers and education.
Ma’s connections were established through his ex-student, ex-colleagues, mutual friends and like-minded entrepreneurs. Interestingly, iPrice said there were three couples in the founding members namely Ma and Cathy Zhang, Shi Yufeng and Jin Yuanying, Toto Sun and Lucy Peng.
Among the 18 co-founders were six women who now hold top-level management roles such as Peng. She was recently appointed as the CEO of Lazada in March 2018 while a majority of founding members hold significant roles within Alibaba and its subsidiaries.
Here are further details of how they met Ma and their history prior to the founding of Alibaba.
Jack Ma
• Ma was born on September 10, 1964, in Hangzhou, China, at the time of communism. In 1988, Ma successfully earned his degree in English from Hangzhou Teacher's Institute. Later, Ma even became an English and International Trade lecturer at the Hangzhou Dianzi University. Eventually, he ventured into business and founded China Yellow Pages, the first Internet company in the country. Ma also managed an information technology company for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Trade and Commerce. Later in 1999, Ma initiated a meeting in his apartment together with his 17 co-founders to develop their first e-commerce venture which is now known to be the giant Alibaba Group.
• Today, Ma is the CEO and chairman of Alibaba which has grown exponentially since its inception in 1999. Currently, Alibaba has more than 79 million users in 240 countries with six active subsidiaries namely: Alibaba.com, Tmall.com, eTao, Alibaba Cloud Computing, Taobao Marketplace, and Yahoo! China.
• At age 54, Ma announced his retirement as chairman of Alibaba in one year to concentrate his efforts in his philanthropy and education, passing his position to Daniel Zhang.
Jin Jianhang
* Jianhang is a top performing student from Fudan Journalism School and has worked at numerous Chinese media such as Zhejiang Daily and Internationall Business Daily.
* Jianhang and Ma’s first encounter happened during Jin’s interview with the entrepreneur back in his China Yellow Pages. As a business journalist, he has always encountered Ma and eventually build connections. During Ma’s presidency in Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Co-operation EDI Centre, now known as Ministry of Commerce of China etc, he recommended Jianhang to become editor-in-chief.
• Later in 1999, Ma started Alibaba along with his trusted friends where Jianhang decided to come along.
Joseph Tsai
* Tsai is an undergraduate degree in economics and East Asian studies and a law degree. Prior to meeting Ma, Tsai was an investment banker earning about US$700,000 annually.
* Deeply inspired by Jack’s charisma and his idea for Alibaba, he made a daring move to give up his high-end job to join Alibaba in 1999 and earned only US$50 monthly.
* Today Tsai is the vice executive chairman and co-founder of Alibaba and ranks as its second-largest individual shareholder after Ma.
Lucy Peng
* Similar to Ma, Peng began her career as a teacher at the Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics. She married Sun Tongyu, in 1997.
* Peng quit teaching in 1999 to join her husband as part of the 18-strong Alibaba founding team.
* She was recently assigned as the CEO of Lazada following Alibaba’s investment of an additional US$2 billion into the marketplace.
Cathy Zhang
* Zhang first met Ma at the Hangzhou Teacher’s Institute. Soon after graduation, they got married.
* In 1999, Jack told Zhang about his plan for Alibaba and along with other partners began working towards the vision.
* Zhang was in Alibaba’s management team and now dedicates her time raising a family with Ma.
Eddie Wu
* Wu graduated with a computer science degree from the Zhejiang University of Technology in 1996 and later joined China Yellow Pages where he was acquainted with Jack Ma.
* In 1997, Wu followed Ma to Beijing and assisted him by managing the MOFTEC website.
* Following Ma’s footsteps, Wu joined Ma in building Alibaba Group as the first programmer out of the 18 founders.
James Sheng
* Sheng began learning traditional art at an early age. He turned to commercial art and started his career as a designer. He was acquainted with Jack Ma when James’ company was hired to design China Yellow Pages’ website.
* Sheng joined Jack Ma’s meeting in his apartment and became one of the 18 founding members of Alibaba in 1999.
* Today, Sheng is known to be the man behind Alibaba’s smile logo and is the co-founder and senior vice president of the Alibaba Group.
Lou Wensheng
* Lou and Ma attended the same university, Hangzhou Teacher’s Institute. Lou eventually became one of Ma’s close supporters.
* Interestingly, Lou decided to join Chinese Yellow Pages after seeing a feature of the company in 1995 Oriental Horizon TV documentary.
Simon Xie
* Xie obtained his degree in financial management from the Shenyang University of Technology and later worked for the China National Air Separation Engineering Co., Ltd. With his interest in computer, he developed his basic skills in Information Technology and managed to practice this skills for work.
* In 1996, Xie had the chance to meet Ma during China Yellow Pages. Attracted by Ma’s unique aura he decided to follow Ma’s ventures.
* Ma and Xie became close friends and decided to give up his high paying job in finance. He first followed Ma to Beijing to work at MOFTEC and later joined Alibaba.
Jin Yuanying
* Jin was Ma’s student in Hangzhou Dianzi University and later was encouraged by Jane Jiang and Han Min to join Alibaba Group.
Zhou Yuehong
* Zhou is a Java architect, he first encountered Ma as his teacher in Hangzhou Dianzi University. Through his expertise in technology, Zhou developed the core code of MVC framework - WebX, which was used mainly for Taobao early days.
Shi Yufeng
* In 1999, Shi worked at Central Weather Bureau. Interestingly, he’s also good in technology which came in handy later as he joined Alibaba.
* Eddie Wu, one of the Alibaba co-founders, noticed Shi's presence in the internet world. At a restaurant in Beijing, Shi first met Ma through Wu. Attracted by Ma's plan and passion for building Alibaba, Shi decided to join Alibaba.