Founders of the three major e-commerce platforms step down as CEOs: who is really retreating and who is "sitting" behind the scenes

JD.com announcement involved in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange

According to the Jingdong Blackboard Newspaper WeChat public account news, Jingdong Group announced that Xu Lei, president of Jingdong Group, as CEO of Jingdong Group, will be responsible for daily operation and management, and report to Liu Qiangdong, chairman of the board of directors of Jingdong Group; Liu Qiangdong will devote more energy to long-term strategic design, major strategic decision-making deployment, young leading talent training and rural revitalization.

Xu Lei ascends to the throne Liu Qiangdong still holds the power of strategic decision-making

According to public information, Xu Lei served as a marketing consultant of JD.com in May 2007, and officially joined JD.com in January 2009, successively serving as the head of the marketing department of Jingdong Mall, the head of the wireless business department, and the CMO of Jingdong Group. In July 2018, Xu Lei served as the CEO of JD Retail Group, leading the retail business to achieve high-quality growth for three consecutive years. On September 6 last year, JD.com announced that Xu Lei was promoted to president of JD Group, responsible for the daily operation and coordinated development of various business segments.

In the announcement of Xu Lei's two appointments, Liu Qiangdong's control over JD.com has not decreased but increased, and in the latest announcement, he has added a major strategic decision-making deployment, which means that Liu Qiangdong still has decision-making power over JD.com's important strategy.

Huang Zheng resigned as chairman and will devote himself to scientific research in the future

Unlike Liu Qiangdong's control over JD.com, Huang Zheng, the founder of Pinduoduo, is really retreating behind the scenes.

On March 17 last year, at the same time that Pinduoduo released its financial report for the fourth quarter and full year of 2020, founder Huang Zheng announced that the board of directors had approved his resignation as chairman, and co-founder and current CEO Chen Lei took over the baton.

Huang Zheng said in the 2021 annual letter to shareholders that after no longer serving as chairman and Pinduoduo management position, the increasingly fierce competition in the industry and even alienation made him realize that the traditional competition with scale and efficiency as the main orientation has its inevitable problems, and to change it, it is necessary to find answers in the core technology and its basic theory. Huang Zheng said that after resigning as chairman, he will combine his personal lifelong interests and devote himself to research in the field of food science and life sciences, and explore a new space for high-speed, high-quality and in-depth development for Pinduoduo ten years later.

As early as 2018, when interviewed by the media, Huang Zheng said: "I hope that I can transform into a real scientific researcher in the future." He once used the example of Benjamin Franklin, who did not participate in business after the age of 40, but participated in scientific research to invent lightning rods, to illustrate why non-profit wholehearted scientific work will contribute more to humanity.

Having resigned as CEO and chairman and gave up super voting rights, Huang Zheng almost completely withdrew from Pinduoduo. However, the proportion of Pinduoduo controlled by Huang Zheng is still 29.4%, and as the founder and major shareholder of this company, Huang Zheng still has implicit influence and decision-making power over Pinduoduo.

Horse to smooth transition full authority to Daniel Zhang management

As early as 2013, Ma Yun resigned as CEO of Alibaba Group, and six years later, he further stepped down as chairman of the group's board of directors, leaving the company under the full management of Daniel Zhang.

On the evening of September 10, 2019, at the 20th annual meeting of Alibaba held in Hangzhou, Jack Ma stepped down as chairman of the board of directors of Alibaba Group, and Daniel Zhang, the current CEO of Alibaba Group, took over the baton. It was Teachers' Day, and it also coincided with Ma Yun's 55th birthday, he announced his resignation as chairman of the board of directors of Alibaba Group, he wrote in his resignation open letter: "Everyone knows that I am a person who can't stay idle, in addition to continuing to serve as an Alibaba partner and making efforts and contributions to the partner organization mechanism, I want to return to education, doing what I love will make me extremely excited and happy." ”

Zhang Jindong resigned as chairman suning Tesco has no actual controller

Not long ago, on July 12, 2021, another large e-commerce platform, Suning Tesco, issued an announcement that Zhang Jindong resigned as chairman of Suning Tesco. Subsequently, on July 29, Suning Tesco issued an announcement that the new board of directors of Suning Tesco was elected, and Huang Mingduan became the new chairman.

On the 4th of this month, Yang Jiawei, a former Jiangsu Suning player in the Chinese Super League, asked for a salary through his personal social platform, saying that he hoped that Chairman Zhang of Inter would be able to remember our grief while enjoying the joy." The 2020 annual report of Suning Tesco, an A-share listed company, shows that Zhang Kangyang, the boss of Inter Milan, is the son of Zhang Jindong, the founder and actual controller of Suning. "Securities Times" reporter reported on February 28 last year, "Since November 2020, Suning has been repeatedly involved in rumors of debt default and capital chain problems." Zhang Jindong's father and son pledged all the shares of Suning Holdings to Taobao and borrowed 1 billion yuan. Entering 2021, the equity pledge actions of Zhang Jindong and Suning Electric Appliance Group are more frequent. According to the financial report, in 2021, Suning Tesco's non-net profit pre-loss was 43.9-44.9 billion yuan, while the company's total market value on April 1 was only 32.4 billion yuan.

The highly tense capital chain has forced Suning to seek change. On July 30, 2021, Suning Tesco issued an announcement of equity change, and the shareholding ratio of the actual controller Zhang Jindong father and son decreased from 44.92% in 2020 to 21.74%, slightly higher than Taobao (China's) shareholding of 19.99%, but lower than the 22.55% shareholding ratio of Jiangsu New New Retail Innovation Fund and Phase II. This means that after a series of capital operations, Zhang Jindong, the founder and original boss of Suning, has lost control of Suning Tesco. On March 25, the secretary of the board of directors replied to investors' questions on the interactive platform: "The company currently has no controlling shareholder and no actual controller. ”

JD.com's fourth-quarter financial report last year showed that it achieved net income of 275.9 billion yuan, an increase of 23.0% year-on-year, and operating profit under Non-GAAP reached 2.8 billion yuan, better than last year's 1.2 billion, in the fourth quarter of the overall consumption slump, JD.com's performance reflected resilience.

Upstream news synthesized from the first financial daily 36 kr Sina finance Sohu finance upstream news and so on