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Dear Alibaba, Aliren and shareholders,
Today, as we celebrate the 19th anniversary of Alibaba, I am delighted to share some news with you:
With the approval of our board of directors, one year after September 10, 2019, which also falls on the 20th anniversary of Alibaba, the Group's CEO, Daniel Zhang, will succeed me as chairman of the board. board of directors of Alibaba group. While remaining Executive Chairman for the next 12 months, I will work closely with Daniel to ensure a smooth and successful transition. Subsequently, I will remain on the Alibaba Board of Directors until our annual meeting of shareholders in 2020.
I've been thinking and preparing this succession plan for ten years. I am pleased to announce the plan today thanks to the support of the Alibaba partnership and our board of directors. I would also like to thank especially all of Alibaba's colleagues and your families, as your trust, your support and our joint venture over the past 19 years have prepared us for this day with confidence and strength.
This transition demonstrates that Alibaba has taken a new step in corporate governance from a people-based enterprise to one based on systems of organizational excellence and talent development culture.
When Alibaba was founded in 1999, our goal was to build a business that could make China and the world proud to be and that could span three centuries to last 102 years. However, we all knew that no one could stay in business for 102 years. A sustainable Alibaba should be based on sound governance, a philosophy centered on culture and consistency in talent development. No company can rely solely on its founders. Of all people, I should know it. Due to the physical limitations of his abilities and energy, no one can assume the responsibilities of President and CEO forever.
We asked ourselves this question 10 years ago – how could Alibaba achieve sustainable growth after Jack Ma's departure? We thought that the only way to solve the problem of the succession of business leaders was to develop a governance system based on a culture and unique mechanisms to develop consistent talents and successors. In the last 10 years, we have continued to work on these ingredients.
Having been trained as a teacher, I am extremely proud of what I have accomplished. Teachers always want their students to go beyond them. The responsibility of the company and myself is therefore to let younger and more talented people take on leadership roles so that they inherit our mission to "facilitate business everywhere." Achieve this mission to help small businesses, young people and women around the world is my passion. It's not just our first day's intention, but I'm happy to have this opportunity. Achieving the dream that underlies this mission requires the participation of many more people than just Jack Ma and persistent efforts by Aliren.
Alibaba is incredible, not because of our activities, our scale or our achievements. The best thing about Alibaba is that we come together in a common mission and vision. Our partnership system, our unique culture and our talented team have laid a solid foundation for our company's legacy. In fact, since I entrusted the responsibilities of the CEO in 2013, the company has been working perfectly for five years thanks to these institutional ingredients.
The partnership system we have developed is a creative solution to good governance and sustainable development, as it overcomes many of the challenges facing large-scale businesses: continuous innovation, leadership, accountability and cultural continuity. Over the years, by repeating our management model, we have experimented and improved the right balance between systems and individuals. Simply relying on individuals or blindly following a system will not solve our problems. To achieve long-term sustainable growth, you need the right balance of system, people, and culture. I am confident that our partnership system and efforts to preserve our culture will win in time the love and support of customers, employees and shareholders.
Since the inception of the company in 1999, we believe that Alibaba's future will depend on "many talents" to allow us to review our succession plans. After years of hard work, Alibaba now has a pool of top-notch talent in quality and quantity. The teacher in me feels extremely proud of our team, our leadership and our unique mission-driven culture, as well as the fact that we continue to develop outstanding business leaders and professional talents like Daniel Zhang.
Daniel has been working for the Alibaba group for 11 years. Since taking office as CEO, he has demonstrated his exceptional talent, his keen business sense and his determined leadership. Under his leadership, Alibaba has enjoyed consistent and sustainable growth for 13 consecutive quarters. His analytical mind is unmatched, he holds our mission and vision to heart, he takes responsibility with passion and he has the courage to innovate and test creative business models. Rightly, the news media in China appointed him the CEO in 2018. For these reasons, he and his team have won the trust and support of customers, employees and shareholders. Passing the torch from Alibaba to Daniel and his team is the right decision at the right time because I know that by working with them they are ready and I have full confidence in our next generation of leaders.
For my part, I still have many dreams to pursue. Those who know me know that I do not like to sit idly by. I intend to continue my role as founding partner of the Alibaba partnership and contribute to the work of the partnership. I also want to go back to education, which excites me with so many blessings because that 's what I like to do. The world is big and I'm still young, so I want to try new things – and if new dreams could be realized?
The only thing I can promise is this: Alibaba never talked about Jack Ma, but Jack Ma will still belong to Alibaba.
Jack Ma
September 10, 2018
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